Young Designer of the Year Award 2004: An Alternate Brief
Didn't do so well in the Young Designer of the Year Award? We are now calling for entries in our Eliminate Plastic Bags Design Challenge
The Young Designer of the Year Brief challenged designers with the following: “Using supermarket checkout plastic bags, design an object that would enhance the domestic setting.” Besides the obvious irony—our ecological setting is currently being marred by these objects so are they really the best choice to enhance the domestic setting?—there is a major flaw in the cursory thought they’ve put into the challenge. Does not extending current applications for the insidious plastic shopping bag add to the problem of plastic bag over-consumption?
Change Designers wanted to enter the competition with a revised brief but group entries were not allowed. This fits with the ‘Cult of the Designer as individual’ agenda pushed throughout Sydney Design Week and ignores the benefits (for the creatives and the end users) of working in teams.
We have therefore rebriefed the Young Designer of the Year Award, offering an alternative for Young (or Old) Designers, working alone or in teams, to address the problem of over-consumption of plastic shopping bags in Australia.
Change Design Week: Designer of the Year Award
Plastic Bag Elimination
Rather than promoting recycling, or reuse of plastic shopping bags, we more ambitiously challenge anyone (designers, young, middle-aged, elderly, individuals, groups, taxi drivers, waitresses or glee clubs) to eliminate the need for plastic shopping bags.
We suggest starting with the needs that plastic shopping bags fulfill. Find an alternative and sustainable means for getting groceries home and lining garbage bins (a major secondary use for plastic shopping bags that causes its own problems in landfill sites).
The elimination design solution can be a product, a service, or a product-service-system: something that either eliminates the need for shopping bags or strongly encourages a widespread shift in behaviour patterns away from plastic bag use. (Biodegradeable bags are not an option)
Please send your design ideas to us in a web-friendly format so that we can post it to the Change Design website. First, register your interest by adding a comment to this article.
nice one. you’ll be getting an email in 5mins.
Posted by on 08/08 at 09:28 PMNot that this addresses the brief posted, just pondering the context of something to “line the bin with”. Back when plastic bags were a precious commodity, i believe paper was used as a bin liner… newspapers, magazines, bills, etc.
Posted by on 08/09 at 06:50 PMLately it’s been fascinating to watch the suddenly everywhere green polyprop shopping bag ‘transform’ into a trashy looking ‘standard’ plastic shopping bag as it is taken up in well established plastic shopping bag practices and circles…
Posted by on 08/09 at 09:29 PMto all the eco-concerned - a website worth visiting is http://www.plasticbagfamine.com an initiative of national science week - it challenges aussies to ‘the plastic bag famine’ - where ‘all’ you have to do is go plastic bag free for one weekend, and you could win a trip to the Daintree! (insert cynical snigger here) - but it is seriously worth a visit, it has facts on different alternatives to the traditional plastic bag, and i guess all awareness is good awareness right? It also has a timeless quote from one of its celebrity supporters(doesn’t every good cause need one?!),so i’ll leave you with the inspiring words of the oh so plastic Miss Dannii Minogue singer and entertainer ‘Everyone needs to shop but it doesn’t have to cost the earth’. oh dannii!
Posted by on 08/10 at 08:06 PMGuess I am not the only one who has a ‘collection’ of ‘green shopping bags’.
Why?
Because everytime when I’m shopping I think “... damn it, I forgot to bring my ‘green’ shopping bag ...”
What does someone do with all those ‘green’ shopping bags?
They are too expensive to use for ‘left-overs’ or to line the rubbish bin ...
What are ‘Chip-Bags’?
It is a system similar to the concept of the ‘bottle with deposit’ one.
Does it sound too simple?
Best design (product or system) is ‘simple’;)
How does it work?
1. Complete ban of plastic bags.
2. ALL shops (smallest grocery to ‘mega’ shopping centres) have to offer alternative bags which can be purchased.
3. If customers have ‘collected’ too many shopping bags, they can ‘exchange’ them (any kind of shop) for a ‘chip’ (like a coin).
4. The ‘chip(s)’ can be used to get another shopping bag(s) (in any kind of shop) WHEN needed. (It is easier to carry ‘chip(s)’ than shopping bag(s) ........)
5. Broken or damaged bags can be dropped at any shop. To encourage this behaviour, one also receives a ‘chip’ (... looking at the bigger picture, it may be cheaper for state or federal government to reimburse shop owners for broken bags than rectifying damage .... environmental impact .....).
Can it work????
YES.
However, state and/or federal government and industry ... have to work together to MAKE it work (financial issues ....??...).
Once the system is in place, it will be just a matter of time till it will be a ‘self-supporting system’.
Can one purchase ‘chips’?
NO. Not at this stage. Public has to be ‘trained’ first to ‘exchange’ so bags will not be ‘stored’ but ‘circulated’.
Can the system be taken a step further ...?
YES. i.e. vending machines in shops, airports etc. where bags can be purchased or ‘exchanged’ for a ‘chip’......
A SIMPLE CONCEPT ???? (I believe it can work but I am also aware of that it needs to be more detailed .... )
ManuelaPosted by on 08/11 at 10:49 AMYep,
I tried to think of things to make for the Young Designer of the Year awards (oh whoops, did i forget to mention that it is sponsered by SMH… how could I forget?! Ahh, the age of corporate sponsorship).
I thought and thought and thought - i designed and drew up a solid vase of melted bag, a screen whose fabric was created with chopped up pieces of plastic machine-embroidered together, a woven living room mat, a lounge using bags as the stuffing (rustle, rustle, rustle). And I thought it would be especially ironic to submit a woven/knitted reusable shopping bag made from used disposable bags as a statement.But, I became utterly dis-illusioned with the project. “What’s the point”, I thought, “of creating more crap for the homewares department to flog off exclusively?” So I gave up. Because my designs still reminded me of plastic bags, and plastic bags make me depressed because they can kill dolphins and turtles. Better off using my bags to line my bin than in another useless commodity to “enhance the home environment”. Nothing like a design brief that actually ENCOURAGES THE USE OF THE OFFENSIVE OBJECT, because, hell, it can be made into a made into a nice bed for the man who lives in box down the street, can’t it?
Besides, the idea of weaving plastic bags into other objects is anything but original anyway. My grandma bought a hat woven out of plastic bags in Casino (near Byron Bay) in 1986 (when i was one year old!) when she came up to visit our family. She still wears it to hang out the washing, 18 years later. Now thats sustainability!!
It turns out I should have entered, because looking at the rubbish (pardon the pun) that was exhibited, I would have had a chance to be famous for a week or so. Yay! My name in the paper! I thought my ideas were pretty lame…
Well good on everyone for actually having a go, but still, how come half the entries were made mostly of OTHER materials (both screens exhibited, for instance). Again, I lament, WHAT WAS THE POINT again? Celebrity design really is all about styling and art more than innovation, isn’t it?
I’m even more disillusioned,
but at least now
I have a space
to have a whinge.
Posted by on 08/12 at 12:45 PMOh yeah,
I would like to recall the blub found on the front of a bio-degradable bag that I got the other day when I forgot to bring my green bag. It went something like this:
5 years - useful life as a bag (guaranteed not to split etc.)
10 years - starts to disinigrate in landfill
20 years - totally broken down.
Well, thats certainly plenty of time to cause damage!!
And just another thing - how environmentally friendly are those ‘green’ bags anyway? They’re made of plastic too! Does anyone know anything about these?
Posted by on 08/12 at 12:55 PM