What do you do with your used milk and juice cartons? I’m sure there are some of you out there who use them in creative ways (seed starters, bird feeders, etc.) but most Americans just throw them away. In fact, only .05% of the 510,000 tons of milk and juice cartons used every year end up getting recycled, meaning that the rest of them end up you know where. Well Portland start-up Milkmuny is attempting to do something about it.
Reaching out to schools and non-profits — who can always use an economic boost — Milkmuny pays for collected empty cartons and then turns them into snazzy looking wallets sure to make all of your eco-fashionista friends super jealous.
Not only does Milkmuny help out schools, but they’re also part of 1% For the Planet. As for green design, Milkmuny’s founder and industrial designer John Schreiber is hoping that his product gets people to start thinking about the real costs of their consumption, even when it’s green. “There is considerably talk these days about ‘green’ design but the vast majority of design, both graphic and industrial, is still about promoting consumption,” says Schreiber.
“It’s ironic that we continue to dispose of existing products and materials like computers or radios in order to purchase ‘greener’ ones. I wanted to challenge traditional design thinking and create a mass produced product that didn’t expend more energy to create or require more resources to produce but was also aesthetically pleasing and uncompromisingly functional,” says Schreiber.
[Via: Treehugger]
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