Consumption & Production

Little Museum of Bad Industrial Design

Published

22 Nov 2011

Written by

Joan Marc Simon

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Primary school students of Capannori, Italy, set up the Museum of Bad Industrial Design (Piccolo Museo degli orroridi progettazione). A museum of packaging and products that cannot be reused, repaired, recycled or composted and hence have to end up in the dump.

This experience allowed the students to observe their everyday life and pick those things that were not sustainable. The experience was enlightening for the students but also for the grown-ups; how can we allow products to enter the market when even children can see that they are designed for the dump?

In order to enlighten the industrial designers of the big wealthy companies producing these goods the pupils wrote letters to them asking to please think about the future and produce products that could be recycled or composted at the end of their lives. As with the case of the coffee-capsules some of them replied with thank you notes and confirming their commitment to improve the design in the future.

Here is a good experience to involve children in waste prevention. The less non-reusable/repairable/recyclable stuff in the market the closer we are to Zero Waste!