From wood to manure...it’s a stinky matter

With spring in the air and warmer weather upon us I see many people in their yards.  I see them pruning, mowing, and planting, but what about the transportation and packaging of all their products? I’d like to take you through the buying process at your local store, and suggest a few implications for design use from that process. 

You buy a potted tree, but what was the tree transported on?  Cardboard is no match for the heavy weight items, so distributors use wooden palettes.  However, I wondered what happens to the palettes when they are done?  So I asked.  I was told they keep a few of the palettes around for unloading trucks, moving items, etc.  Others are sent back to the company they originated from, IF they are in top shape.  However, if they are damaged, broken or unusable they are trashed.  Which means the general public could not only get an item for free, but within Cradle to Cradle they could use this waste as a food.

If waste equals resources, then the pallets easily fall into this category.  Interior implications for the palettes can fall under both the recycle and reuse category, as well as, be a member of up-cycling.  The original palettes, although useful, did not have a very “valuable” life.  However, what I would like to propose is converting the discarded palettes into furniture.  This could be a headboard, a seating frame, a shelf on the wall, etc.  According to Cradle to Cradle, this concept falls into a technical nutrient cycle, which means to be within a “closed-loop” industrial cycle.  The palettes are used, given new life as a furniture piece, and then can be turned back into parts for new assembly of more palettes.

  Palette Coffee Table

Now let’s discuss the plant you purchased.  It comes in a nice, flexible green dyed pot.  However, although this pot contains your harmless plant, it also contains harmful toxins.  You also purchase fertilizer, or manure, that comes in a plastic bag.  So why not convert these two product into one?  A pot made from manure, which not only can be used to transport the plant from the store to home, but also can be safely planted into the ground and feed the earth.  According to the C2CAD reading, designers need to phase out other products and only select products that are defined as either biological or technical nutrients. To be a biological nutrient a product must be able to be biodegradable, or feed the environment. The product I am suggesting falls under that category. 

Manure Based Pot

Although I thought I was being innovative by developing this product, I did a little Google searching and found that it already exist in some forms.  One product I found is called “CowPots”, which were developed by dairy farmers.  Their process came from a belief that they could use their cow’s manure to manage their nutrient stream.  This reminds me of Anita Ahuja, a designer discussed in the Textile Futures article.  Ahuja is taking trash and transforming it into trendy fashion, the same is being done with CowPots.  One person’s trash is TRULY another person’s treasure.