Public Trash Cans That Aren’t Overflowing with...

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[Background on, & press coverage of, Unconsumption can be found here and here.]

Consumption is a word used to describe acts of acquisition – generally, the acquisition of things, in exchange for money.

Unconsumption is a word used to describe everything that happens after an act of acquisition.

Unconsumption is an invisible badge.

Unconsumption means the accomplishment of properly recycling your old cellphone, rather than the guilt of letting it sit in a drawer.

Unconsumption means the thrill of finding a new use for something that you were about to throw away.

Unconsumption means the pleasure of using a service like Freecycle (or Craigslist, Goodwill, or Salvation Army) to find a new home for the functioning DVD player you just replaced, rather than throwing it in the garbage.

Unconsumption means enjoying the things you own to the fullest – not just at the moment of acquisition.

Unconsumption means the pleasure of using a pair of sneakers until they are truly worn out – as opposed to the nagging feeling of defeat when they simply go out of style.

Unconsumption means feeling good about the simple act of turning off the lights when you leave the room.

Unconsumption is not about the rejection of things, or the demonization of things. It’s not a bunch of rules.

Unconsumption is an idea, a set of behaviors, a way of thinking about consumption itself from a new perspective.

Unconsumption is free.

CONTRIBUTORS:

Founder & Editor: Rob Walker, journalist, Savannah, GA

Editorial & Community Manager: Molly Block, marketing and business development geek, Houston, TX

Brian W. Jones, designer & writer, Göteborg, Sweden

Kashvi Kumar, Environmental Studies and Economics major at New York University

Deirdre Nelson, ever threading artist, Glasgow, Scotland

Shanna Trenholm, writer. catalyst. force of nature. San Diego, CA

* * *

Alumnus & Unconsumption logo creator: Clifton Burt, graphic designer, Portland, OR

Further information about Unconsumption can be found here.

8:33 am - Mon, May 14, 2012: 103 notes

High-Res

Public Trash Cans That Aren’t Overflowing with Empty Coffee Cups - Design - The Atlantic Cities:

Copenhagen designer So Hoj noticed, and was bothered by, piles of spent coffee cups spilling out of trash cans and onto the sidewalk around the city.

Hoj, a self-employed designer with a background in accessories, took up the problem herself by converting tall, slender cardboard tubes from the post office into receptacles for discarded cups.

The idea is simple enough: you can hold more cups in a smaller space when they’re stacked neatly inside each other. Hoj’s theory was that this would alleviate the cup problem by giving them their own, more compact space, and leaving larger trash cans for other items.

…

She mounted her “test tube” cup collectors and put them on two trash cans along the waterfront. Quickly, her fellow Copenhageners caught on.

Here’s what the trash cans used to look like before her solution: