ianlcrawford.co.uk > projects > RSA Designing Out Waste



P R O J E C T S	Designing Out Waste - Cycles System RSA Design Directions 2006 - Winning entry 1. Skip to the Flash Presentation The brief asked for design proposals that would minimise waste, and offered the opportunity to look at the problem from a "broader systems or holistic approach" rather than providing "merely a quick fix".
> Designing Out Waste (RSA)
Wir Hier - Services (RSA)
Sleep Scentsor - Insomnia
Classroom of the Future
Dissertation - Well-Being
Enable - Mobile Phone

S K I L L S
A B O U T M E








	Development Process For many of us, waste is not something that we regularly think about. In between working, looking after children and playing Poker with friends, it can be easy to pass by. This project was a chance to address the issue and raise public awareness. After the first research phase I decided to focus on the problems relating to food, including production, consumption and packaging.





		"The UK produces over 8 million tonnes of packaging a year - enough to fill 19,000 jumbo jets." Source: Environmental Information Exchange "We use more food packaging per person than any other country in Europe." Source: John Vidal, "Drowning in a tide of discarded packaging"

			After selecting the specific issue of food packaging, my research became more focused and I was keen to find as many related problems as possible - I visited and analysed restaurants, buying co-ops, farmers markets, fast food outlets and supermarkets.



	The second stage was to contact the experts whose opinions I felt would be useful during the design process and whom I could work with to create a valid solution: I worked with three main people during the design process; Derek Davies (The Co-operative's Packaging Innovations Manager) in order to gain a better understanding of the issues that affect a retailer. Wendy Jedlicka, who was incredibly helpful, and almost acted as a third tutor during the project. As a sustainable packaging expert, she was able to give me detailed advice; especially in relation to source pathogens and other hygiene problems. Finally I consulted with Mat Hardwood, from Abel and Cole, mainly regarding distribution and logistics.



	Based on my research findings I generated a large variety of different concepts including: > edible fast food packaging > large-scale bulk food delivery service > starch-based packaging that could be dropped straight in the pan > reusable food packaging service After liasing with the others I selected the idea of large-scale bulk delivery and then worked to refine the concept until I had a feasible and realistic result.



			During development I decided that this concept was not going to provide me with the bold solution that I had initially hoped for. Instead I chose to return to one of my earlier ideas: a standardised packaging system where containers are cleaned and reused.


	Final Proposal


	Watch the Flash presentation - High Bandwidth (6mb) Low Bandwidth (3mb) The presentation requires the free Macromedia Flash player and may take a moment to download depending on your connection speed.

	Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License		Top of the page