reverse design for environmental happiness

While procrastinating this morning, I came across the Solay Running Shoe case study from Boston-based design company Continuum.

First, I love that Continuum continues to explore how design can create positive social changes, especially in the environmental arena.

Second, this type of reverse design—where you take an object that usually ends up sitting in a landfill and improve it so this outcome no longer happens—can be applied everywhere. Every time that you throw something away, the designer in you should ask "how could this object be improved so that it doesn't end up in the trash"?

For some items, like water bottles, the solution may be to eliminate them altogether and use a non-disposable substitute (like this). In others, like the sneaker, a better design will be the solution.

This seems like the first step towards cradle-to-cradle design, and a good practice to start thinking like an environmentally-conscious designer.

Note: If you have some time, read through some of the posts from the No Impact Man blog (linked above, but here it is again). It is truly interesting, and holds tons of good ideas that that majority of us "impact people" can use.