When I was in the fourth grade Sea Road Elementary School, our lovely and ever so eco-friendly janitor went on a mission to change the world to be “more green.” Some might say he was a true visionary. Along with recycling bins, he brought us “milk in a bag.” No longer would we suffer through the complicated process of opening a cardboard carton: the bags were here. They were a combination of Capri Sun and Ziploc bags… and weird looking. “Milk in bag” was a lot less wasteful, easier to ship to schools and virtually indestructible. Our eco-janitor proved this by throwing a milk bag across the cafeteria as a demonstration. You can imagine the faces of a few hundred fourth graders when we discovered a new water balloon would be provided every day at lunch. Needless to say, the milk bags didn’t last very long at the elementary school. Or anywhere else for that matter.
But being eco-friendly is in now. Most of the commercials on TV talk about two things: Saving the Economy/money or saving the planet. Recycling has never been so trendy. Design is reflecting a cleaner, simplistic look and organic colors like brown are in again. Little fact: last time the color “Champagne” was the most popular car color was during the recession of the late 70’s. Look on the road now. You’ll see a lot more tan cars.
And back to my odd little story. I recently came across this European production company called Ecoclean (http://www.ecolean.com/) that has essentially redesigned “Milk in a bag” The design has been hugely popular in the design community and was give 4.28 stars out of 5 from Dieline.com. It’s not only eco-friendly, but also cost efficient. So will this come back in style and the efforts of my elementary school janitor not wasted? I’m not sure we’ll all be pouring milk from a bag on our morning cereal anytime soon, but it does make us think about the cost of production on our environment. And new ways to design while being eco-friendly.
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