Posts Tagged ‘environmental impact’

Trash Tracker: Technology and Art

Thursday, July 28th, 2011


(image credit: SENSEable City Lab at MIT)

Ever wanted to see where your stuff goes after you throw it out? We’re not talking about touring landfills here – we mean literally seeing its whole path and trajectory in Technicolor.

Well, a new exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York is displaying the fruits of two MIT researchers’ trash-tracking labor. Carlo Ratti and Assaf Biderman developed these little trackers that tell you in real time where something is for a whole year. And then they did something really cool with them…

They gave the trackers to people to attach to anything they were about to throw out – from fruit to furniture – and turned all that data into cool and colorful visualizations like the one you see up there (^^). The idea is that maybe people will start to pay attention to their trash, or figure out new and better ways to deal with it (i.e. improve their environmental impact).

Pretty cool. Or, rather, pretty and cool…

What do you do with your old electronic gadgets?

Conscious Consumerism is…

Friday, July 8th, 2011

Conscious consumerism is being aware of where your money really ends up when you spend it. It’s the practice of purchasing goods and services that the consumer (you) considers to be produced in an ethical manner.

Money leaves a social and environmental footprint wherever it goes. So if a company makes a habit of spilling oil in the ocean or refusing to give its employees benefits, you’re unknowingly saying “yes!” to all that by purchasing their stuff.

On the flip-side, conscious consumers are aware of all this and avoid products that do harm to or exploit humans, animals or the natural environment. They not only favor ethical products but also boycott merchandise and companies that act unscrupulously.

Environmental Impact is…

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Environmental impact is any change to the natural environment caused by the activity of people, businesses, governments, organizations or any other entity. Environmental organizations can have beneficial environmental impacts, but businesses that pollute and people that litter have negative environmental impacts.