Tag Archives: Sustainable Product Designs

A sustainable underground fridge + more product designs to help you lead that zero waste lifestyle!

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Our unhealthy practices and way of living are truly harmful to the environment and have been slowly leading to its deterioration. And the world has been changing (for the worse) because of this. Hence, it is extremely important to live sustainably and consciously and to take care of the environment. Integrating sustainability into our day-to-day lives has become crucial! And we can do this in various ways. Designers and creators are coming up with sustainable alternatives for almost everything! Every product that is necessary and utilized by us in our everyday routine has an eco-friendly alternative to it. Replacing our usual mass-produced designs with these greener options will make a huge difference to the environment and Mother Earth! From a sustainable underground fridge that keeps food chilled naturally, to the world’s first sustainable workstation, we’ve curated a whole collection of sustainable product designs to help you go green!

Cellars have been used across the ages to store food or even act like bunker houses in case of natural disasters. Groundfridge takes that design one step further by adding fresh food refrigeration to the game. The trick used by Groundfridge is by utilizing the natural insulating capacity of the ground and the cooler night air temperatures. The balance of this design allows you to store your vegetables, fruits, cheese, and even wine throughout the year. Ventilating this project uses a fan with a timer that replenishes the cool air during the night. Too hot for comfort? An additional cooler can be used to power it during the hottest summer days. “The Groundfridge is dug in and covered with the excavated soil from its new location. This covering layer of soil is about 1 meter thick and has good insulating properties for the core temperature within the Groundfridge to barely vary. Furthermore, your Groundfridge is fitted with a ventilator.” I can see this system become a sustainable alternative in family housing societies trying to adopt a more eco-friendly style of living.

The Everloop Toothbrush from NOS tackles this problem head-on by using a recycled plastic handle and disposable bamboo bristles. Taking on a unique cradle-to-cradle approach, the brush comes with a plastic handle that is, in fact, made from recycled toothbrushes. At the very end is a clamping mechanism that allows you to attach 100% natural bamboo bristles to the toothbrush’s head. The idea is to retain the plastic handle and periodically replace the bamboo bristles every few months. The bamboo bristles have absolutely no plastic in them, allowing them to easily be disposed of, or composted in a way that doesn’t harm the environment.

Oquari is a biodegradable razor with comes with interchangeable heads that aim to provide a sustainable alternative that can help reduce the burden on the environment. The razor is made with PBS Bionelle as well as stainless steel blades as part of a regenerative approach and it degrades in aquatic environments. Its design is specifically geared at reducing manufacturing processes and facilitate the separation of its elements at the end of its life so that it becomes an accessible, attractive, and economical product without being recognized as “disposable” which the team refers to as  ‘monstrous hybrid’ – a term coined by

Inspired to create a standing fan that’s not white, plastic, and likely to end up on the sidewalk come September, design group Ttato built Aura. Minimal by conscious design, Aura’s build was stripped down to its bare components: cage, propeller, base, and motor. Built to be a home appliance that can be used throughout the year, Aura was specifically built for optimal functionality. Constructed with materials that were selected for their sustainability, durability, and beauty, Aura exudes a sophisticated air and follows that through with detailed functionality. Aura’s rotor blades, for instance, were formed from the overlaying and bending of birch and ash veneers, lengthening the rotor blades’ lifespan while celebrating the craft of woodworkers.

Pith & Stem describes its sustainable DropTop workstation as fully integrated and plug-and-play ready, meaning that it comes kitted out with a pair of 24-inch full-HD monitors and USB/USB-C cables for charging and connecting to Windows and Mac laptops. Beneath these monitors are two storage areas for said laptops or other odds and ends. The workstation itself is made from thick birch plywood that can be finished in either black or white satin, with the front folding down to form a desk measuring 120 x 60 cm (47 x 24 in) that is held in place by custom hinges, which appear to be rather strong.

Made from wheat husk for its base and PHA for the lid, Reuse serves as a fully compostable food container that not only amplifies our experience consuming takeout food but creates a conversation around our high-consumption habits and the negative effect they have on our environment. Wheat husk and PHA, a bacteria-based composite that works like a natural plastic derived from organic materials, can both be composted as food waste, without additional industrial-level composting facilities.

Nuclée is a lamp created from discarded banana flesh and it is….truly bananas! The minimal lamp puts the sustainable material front and center with a bamboo circle around it to highlight it. Banana fibers from the plantations are usually considered as waste after the traditional extraction process and cast aside. However, the designers were intrigued by this. material and found it fascinating when working with a lighting design concept. After empirical research, they succeeded in stabilizing the plant tissue using a particular refining technique and after applying different pressure as well as heat parameters. This new material is highlighted by shapes of bent bamboo, inspired by the internal structure of the banana tree stem and that is how the form of Nuclée mood lights came to be.

Switch is an award-winning toothbrush design with sustainability at its core. It allows you to replace only the brush head and keep the long-lasting metal handle. Manually replace the head by simply twisting the top of the toothbrush to remove and replace the head with a range of options. Switch is produced from recycled materials and the first of its kind available for mass production so it can make an impact quickly when distributed in the market. The design was one of the Red Dot Design Awards 2021 winners as well as a part of the iF Design Awards 2021. The bristles change color indicating that the head needs to be changed and ensuring effective cleaning.

CANNE addresses the problem of people not having the motivation to join a CPR course because of fewer opportunities, fewer interests, high cost, fast-paced lifestyle, and less awareness. CPR training also requires mannequins which are expensive and given the population of China, teaching cost is a big factor to keep in mind. The less qualified full-time instructors, short supply, and overworked skilled physicians were other significant barriers that were uncovered during research. CANNE addresses these problems with its cost-effective, sustainable, and easily accessible design. It provides a self-directed CPR learning experience for every citizen and can be broken down into two parts – a corrugated cardboard Basic Life Support (BLS) learning kit and a BLS self-directed smartphone app.

Eunsang Lee has designed 5A1, a modular, infinity room divider that can be endlessly reconfigured to extend the product’s life cycle. Feeling a sense of responsibility as a designer to create more sustainable products, Eunsang Lee turned to room dividers to reinterpret the classic piece of furniture. Today, new products are typically made from materials with short life cycles, leading to more consumption and waste. Constructed from responsibly sourced and sustainable materials like wood and steel, 5A1 is a minimal room divider, formed by hanging steel cables where steel and wooden modules can be attached and configured to hang clothes, mirrors, or even plants. Inspired by the act of communication between people, the 5A1 room divider comes with modules that can be attached, forming infinite configurations and a multifunctional piece of home decor.

Sustainable Product Designs to ensure you travel and holiday in eco-friendly style!

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Everyone is veering towards sustainability! Living sustainably, consciously, and considerately has become imperative now. And traveling shouldn’t be an exception! We all love jet-setting off on holidays, and it’s now our moral duty towards the environment to vacation as sustainably as possible. From staying at hotels and resorts that support eco-tourism to using travel products that are sustainable, there are many minor steps we can take that will contribute to a major change. In this spirit of green traveling, we’ve curated a collection of product designs that promise to make your next trip as eco-friendly and sustainable as possible! These are products that are not only conscious of the environment but also capable of catering to your needs as efficiently as possible. These unique designs could completely transform how we travel and vacation. Enjoy!

PriestmanGoode’s sustainable inflight meal service has completely transformed the conventional meal tray we are so used to receiving on a flight. “We’ve used a wide range of materials for our design concepts,” says Rowan. And they’ve kept their word. Each element is either partially edible, reusable, soluble, or biodegradable. They’ve ditched plastic meal trays for partially edible ones made from coffee grains and husks mixed with a lignin binder. The miscellaneous food containers that fit into the tray have been made from wheat bran. Banana leaf or algae have been combined with rice husk to create lids for side dishes like salad. Whereas a wafer has been used as a dessert lid, hence the materials symbolically reflect the food. Instead of having several pieces of single-use cutlery, the handy ‘spork’- a combination of a fork and spoon- made from coconut wood has been adopted. The usual plastic containers for milk or sauces have been abandoned in exchange for edible pods created from soluble seaweed.

A team of designers created RHITA – a suitcase that is super easy to assemble and disassemble which makes it easier to repair or recycle. “Every year hundred thousand of discarded luggage caused by damaged wheels, handles, shells or shells that are deformed or damaged by collision, hard to be repaired or disassemble for recycling, bringing great impact to the environment. Hence, design for assembly and disassembly allows the suitcase easy to repair or recycle, reduced parts by simplifying the structure and minimized material used, downsize shipping volume to decrease carbon footprint boosting sustainability,” says the design team. RHITA’s simplified structure reduces the number of parts used in production by 70% when compared to traditional suitcases. Even the space needed for transportation has been reduced by 33%. It features an innovative hinge system and a unique installation method – no glue or rivet for fixation, no sewing of the inner lining, maximizing the space inside as well as a quick fasten and loosen wheel mechanism.

The Green Box is an innovative solution that aligns hotel stays with your sustainable lifestyle choices! It is an amenity kit designed to help hotels to transition to a circular economy and avoid the waste generated by tens-of-millions of amenity kits are thrown away by hotel chains – we use them once but they last forever on our planet. Green box is made from compostable plastic which will let hotels industrially compost and organically recycle the items in a controlled environment. The design goes beyond providing functional value and also aims to educate guests about the material and its impact to encourage better choices even after the vacation ends. Each box comes with a disposable bin for the room to familiarize guests with the new kind of waste stream. The guests will sort materials as compostable and non-compostable by simply following the color grading – green for compostable and white for general waste.

PANGEA’s Bamboo Adventure Towel 2.0 is carbon-negative – they pull more carbon out of the atmosphere than they put in, leaving the earth in a better condition than it was before. Unlike most travel towels which come made from plastic microfibers, the Bamboo Adventure Towel 2.0 has absolutely no plastic used in its construction. As its name suggests, it comes crafted from 100% bamboo fibers, dyed with natural dyes, and woven into a waffle pattern for effective absorption and exfoliation. Designed for the outdoors, the towels are up to thrice as absorbent as your average microfiber towel and are naturally hypoallergenic and anti-bacterial. In fact, the towels even come with reinforced slits on the corners, so you can suspend them and use them as makeshift sunshades, or even wear them as cloaks or ponchos.

It’s no secret that washing your derriere with water is more efficient, hygienic, and sustainable as compared to toilet paper. After all, you don’t wipe your dishes clean with a tissue after eating in them, so why use tissues on your behind? I’ll admit, it’s a culture-shock changing how you clean your behind, but given that the US alone uses more than 6 billion rolls of toilet paper annually, it’s an ecological crisis we can’t ignore. Besides, ironically enough, toilet paper takes tons of water to produce. Using a battery-powered motor and an internal water tank that you can top off before you head to the loo, Sonny generates a micro-shower to help you clean up after your business, effectively, hygienically, and sustainably. With an easy-to-use interface, Sonny comes with normal and high-spray settings that shoot water for anywhere between 25-40 seconds (depending on the spray intensity), enough to clean your behind. Besides, much like a bidet, Sonny can even be used on your nether regions too, to keep things hygienic and fresh.

This gives a completely new meaning to the word ‘papercut’! Say hello to the Paper Razor, a sustainable alternative to the disposable plastic razor. The Paper Razor, as its name suggests, comes with an all-paper body and sports a metal blade-head on top. Designed to be flat-packed, the single-use razor comes completely unfolded and can easily be put together in a matter of seconds by merely folding in the sides and the top to create a rigid, ergonomic razor with a grippy handle. Its origami-inspired design gives it as much strength and maneuverability as a plastic razor, while minimizing the use of plastic by as much as 98%. The result? A razor that can be easily flat-packed and shipped, used, and then disposed of… safely, of course. It’s perfect to carry around and use on your work or leisure trips!

Designed to be a reusable travel cutlery set with a difference, the Cliffset doesn’t just focus on portability, it focuses on maintenance too, by being perhaps the only cutlery set I’ve seen that comes with its own cleaning tool to clean up after you’re done eating! Everything fits in a portable pouch that’s small enough to fit in your pocket or slip into a backpack, and is designed to be carried everywhere you go and be cleaned and reused over and over again, giving you the comfort of knowing that you’re using your OWN cutlery (as opposed to using cutlery in restaurants) made from reusable materials, which you don’t need me to tell you is a much better option compared to the use-and-throw plastic cutlery that pollutes our planet and oceans.

These cork headphones are another great addition to that list and show us that gadgets can also go green – you would be surprised to know how much plastic goes in making a simple pair of headphones. Weighing only 64 grams  (0.14 lbs) these headphones are super light! Cork is a versatile material that is being explored to design sustainable products. It is non-allergic, resilient, sound insulating, moisture-proof, and soft to touch. If you are an everyday headphone user, you know that there is a lot of wear and tear that happens and instead of repairing, we usually just upgrade which increases our plastic consumption. Cork headphones are easy to repair and dismiss thanks to an assembly based on the compressibility of the material. There is no glue, no upholstery, no screws involved – just cork, simple electric parts, steel, and foam. These are perfect for listening to your favorite tunes on those long travel journeys!

The ClickStraw addresses the inherent flaws of the straws before it. Plastic straws are an environmental hazard, paper straws become soggy, bamboo straws end up developing molds, and metal straws are difficult to clean. Made from high quality and sustainable TPE, the ClickStraw is designed to be used multiple times, and moreover, is easy to maintain. Its hollow, tubular structure can be opened out completely, allowing you to rinse the inner surface of the straw, giving it a deep clean. The ClickStraw’s innovation lies in a ziplock-bag-style snapping fixture and a live-hinge that run along the length of the tube. To clean the straw, slide your thumb in and it opens up. Once you’re done, click it shut like a zip-lock bag and you’ve got yourself a spanking clean straw that doesn’t degrade, get dirty, or worse, corrode like your metal straws. You can now carry your own reusable and sustainable straw whenever you travel, instead of using those pesky single-use plastic straws!

There’s a certain, undeniable convenience to the plastic bottle. It’s easy to just take off the shelf, drink from, and then throw away once you’re done. You don’t need to worry about carrying a bulky bottle along with you that occupies the same amount of space, even when empty. The convenience of plastic is addictive, but it comes at a price. There’s a garbage island the size of Texas floating around in the pacific sea, COVERED with plastic bottles we used and threw away without batting an eyelid. Plastic bottles are preferred because they’re more convenient than carrying your own bulky empty bottles around with you, but the Origami Bottle may have a solution to that convenient problem. Designed to be reusable, but more importantly, be collapsible, the Origami Bottle folds down to 20% of its original size when not in use. Small enough to easily fit into any bag without occupying much space, the Origami Bottle neatly folds down to a nice, portable puck that’s easy and convenient to carry around. When you need to fill it up, the bottle opens up to a full size of 25oz (750ml).