The document discusses responsible design and reducing packaging waste. It describes the EU ecolabel which identifies products with reduced environmental impact. It also discusses EU directives from 1994 and 2004 that targeted reducing packaging waste by designing out excess space and increasing recycling and reuse. The document provides examples of companies like Duracell and Motorola that reduced packaging waste and notes that packaging innovations like LDPE cushions use less material. It discusses how Sprint reduced its phone packaging waste by 60% through design innovations. It promotes a retractable water bottle design that reduces packaging and transportation needs.
2. The EU “ecolabel”, established in 1993, is a voluntary scheme which encourages manufacturers to label products that fit a specific
criteria, resulting from reduced impact of the environment. Similar to the “Fairtrade” symbol, consumers would recognise the flower
logo and know that the product has reduced environmental impacts. With this logo printed on a products packaging, sales would
increase due to society’s recent increased interest in environmentally friendly design. In 1994 the EU introduced a new packaging
directive which was amended in 2004, targeting the reduction of packaging used, by designing out the wasted space in packaging, as
well as recycling and re-using packaging. Furthermore, it set specific limits on the amounts of toxic metals used in packaging. By 2008
the EU’s goal was to recover 60% of packaging waste, with a minimum of 55% of this waste being recycled. Due to the aforementioned
EU packaging waste directive, an increase of design and development work has been focused heavily into reducing packaging waste.
Examples of this include Duracell who moved from using high impact polystyrene blister
packstosimplecardsleeves,aswellasMotorola,whowereoneofthefirstcompaniestouse
mouldedcardboardinsertsratherthanexpandedpolystyreneintheirphoneboxes.Further
developments in packaging have come from LDPE cushions, which reduce the amount of
polymersusedinpackagingaswellastakingupverylittlespaceoncedeflated,meaninglarge
amountscanberecycledwithoutwastedspacewhenbeingtransportedtotherecyclingplant.
For the past six years, American telecommunications company, “Sprint” has dramatically
improved upon the sustainabilityissuesthat it faced withits packaging. This 55% reduction
in packaging and environmental effects is largely attributed to innovation in their design
approach, including: raw materials, adhesives and printing inks. In comparison to their
previous phone packaging solutions, they are now 60% smaller and half the weight. Due
to the fact that their boxes are now smaller, they are able to fit almost twice as many
products on shipping pallets, thus reducing shipping costs and the amount of fuel usage
The main feature in our product will be its ability to reduce in size. This is not only a useful
featurefortheconsumerswhowillbeabletoreducethebottletotakeuplessspaceintheir
bagorwhilstbeingstoredathome,italsoprovidesanaddedbonusfortheinitialpackaging
oftheproduct.Thisisbecausetheproductcanbeshippedtotheretailersinitssmallerform
whichwilldramaticallyreducetheamountofspacerequiredtoshipeachbottle,inturnhalving
the amount of transportation required, thus saving money and saving the environment.
3. On this page are a few initial designs
I had for our group project, howev-
er we ultimately decided to go with
the design of another member of the
group. All our designs followed the
same concept, in that they were all
retractable in order to save space.
6. Using the “Azure Sky” water bottle will eliminate the
need to ever buy bottled water again. Using our unique
points system, every time you fill up your bottle from
one of our filtered water stations, by scanning the QR
code on the bottle, you will earn points which add up
to supply you with free refills and steam cleans for your
“Trident”Bottle.Therevolutionarydesignallowstheuser
to compact the bottle when empty so that it takes up
less space in their bag or whilst being stored. The design
also allows for the product to be shipped to the retailers
already compacted, thus more can be shipped at once in
turn reducing the amount of vehicles and time required
to ship ordinary bottles. Due to its sleek space age
construction,userswillbeproudtoshowofftheirbottles,
thus encouraging others to purchase one, subsequently
reducing the amount of plastic bottles being produced.
