The Wombles are fictional pointy-nosed, furry creatures that live in burrows, where they aim to help the environment by collecting and recycling rubbish in creative ways. Does environmentally aware design have to mean lower standards of graphics and print? It is an uncomfortable fact, but most of what graphic designers help to create ends up in the bin – and sooner rather than later. Annual reports, posters, stationery, magazines, leaflets and packaging rarely have a useful life of more than a couple of months, after which the majority of them are buried in landfill rubbish dumps.
We all need to travel less and walk and cycle more. For longer journeys we should use public transport – buses, coaches and trains. The lesser cars on the road the better, but why not try lift sharing? Visit LIFTSHARE, it’s the largest national lift share organization in the UK, Sign up for regular lifts such as school runs, commuting or shopping, or for one off trips to festivals, events, or visiting friends. It will not only save you money, but means there will be fewer cars on the road, fewer cars – less pollution! Even better, jump on a Boris Bike. It goes without saying that travelling by bus is far greener than going by car or plane. Leave your car at home and climb aboard! And busses are getting cleaner. EU regulations and exhaust pipe emissions have become increasingly strict over the last decade – London busses are leading the way. Like us, in his commitment to make London greener, Mayor Ken Livingstone particulate filters to diesel busses and has pioneered a number of cleaner technologies, such as hydrogen fuel cells and diesel hybrids. (The new Green Consumer)
It takes twice as much energy to make virgin paper as it does to make recycled paper. Throwing paper into landfill sites produces greenhouse gases and wastes recourses. Getting good quality recycled paper is no longer a problem as technology has improved significantly. Buying recycled paper should be high on the list for any Womble inspired studio. The more recycled a paper looks, the more designers and printers need to work with it, rather than attempting things that are just not possible. It is a waste of time trying to print a very fine, low-resolution photograph on to a highly textured paper and then being disappointed with the results. There are, however, tricks which can be used to improve the paper’s performance. As Elise Valmorbida, a designer at Newell and Sorrell who worked on the Body Shop’s catalogue explains, their printers, Anderson Fraser, discovered that by removing the black film from a colour separation, a better effect could be achieved when printing colour pictures on grey-tinged recycled paper.
As Bartlett points out, one reason that paper caught the public imagination as an environmental issue was that it is so ubiquitous. Everyone comes into contact with it every day, and choosing an environmentally friendly paper is a cheap and easy way of making yourself feel that you are doing something positive about the environment. You cannot choose to plug your domestic appliances into a source of environmentally friendly electricity, and buying a less polluting car is a major expense. Changing your paper is so much simpler. While the debate rumbles on, paper manufacturers and merchants continue to improve the environmental impact of their products in the knowledge that whatever they do, they are in the public spotlight in a way few would have once thought possible. In the UK, brands such as Mellotex, an uncoated paper made by Tullis Russell, and Huntsman Real Silk from Robert Horne are introducing ECF and TCF versions at a rate of knots. In fact, so comparatively open has the paper industry become that consumers of its products can routinely find out an extraordinary amount of information about them. In the UK, for instance, merchants such as Robert Horne keep environmental fact sheets about every paper they sell. For designers, this new openness can only be good news. While the material with which they work most closely has had a very bad press over the past few years, this seems unlikely to continue, as production and recycling go on being improved.
Womble tips for greening your studio: Reduce paper demand by printing double sided wherever possible. Reuse paper that has only been printed on one side. Buy paper with the highest recycled paper content possible. Reuse envelopes – put stickers over address labels. Paper recycling containers. Forget disposable coffee cups, bring your own mug. Get a good quality pen and keep it.
Don’t just recycle – Upcycle! Upcycling is the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or for better environmental value. Orsola de Castro, 43, is the founder of From Somewhere, which makes clothes out of recycled offcuts of luxury materials. The concept of fast fashion is very new. When I moved to London from Italy in the 1980s, if you couldn't afford something you would either steal it or wait for it, but it wasn't about having a fiver in your pocket and having to spend it, as it is now. Fashion is more democratic now, but I hate fast fashion because it is so wasteful. Clothes should be ethically made and recycled properly. Buy clothes with longing and desire, don't buy on a whim, and always buy thinking you will pass it on to someone else. That way you will buy good quality and classic styles. Take the time to learn how to sew and mend. Sewing machines are very exciting objects and one can be very creative with one's clothes.