Advocacy Poster - E-Waste - undead-design.com

1 year ago

Advocacy Poster - E-Waste

For Exercise 2 in GD2 this semester we were told about the Massive Change book where designers try to tackle environmental issues. I decided to take on the issue of E-Waste (short for electronic waste. obviously named during the “e before words means technology” phase). After doing a lot of research, I was a bit appalled to learn that 80% of e-waste goes unrecycled in the US. Over 500 million computers have been dumped (due to being obsolete or malfunctioning in some way) from 1997 to 2007 in America alone. Even worse, there is little to no government legislation requiring any sort of e-waste take back program like there is in Europe. Above that, even though there is legislation blocking e-waste from being sent to China, it still is anyway. When it reaches China, small villages thrive on breaking down these computers and cell phones. They strip metals and other valuable materials from the e-waste and then burn the rest. Without proper equipment, these people are exposed to massive amounts of lead, cadmium, mercury and other elements that cause skin conditions, birth defects and cancer… all for $1.50 a day. These people are being poisoned by the worlds need for technology. (Learn more here: http://www.ban.org/ )

Recently the push towards green energy and technology has started to change this situation though. That is the good news. Companies like Apple have completely revamped their product lines to be very recyclable and without many of the deadly elements including PVCs and more. (Details here) They have also reduced the size of packaging in addition to taking back any computer (Apple or otherwise) at their stores, as well as offer 10% off of new iPod purchases when you bring your old one in (see store for details). In addition to Apple, major PC makers like Dell and Lenovo have started offering take back programs as well. Sadly though, other companies like Nintendo and Sony have not made a big push to develop environmentally friendly devices yet. What truly would make a difference is if the products we were to buy were designed for recycling. Something that is already in the works from major companies, but still years off from becoming standard. So for now, the real issue is informing people that throwing away media, hard drives, computers, CRT monitors, TVs, video games systems and more is not an option. The message needs to be spread “Do not buy what the manufacturer will not take back to recycle” that as a mindset can help change the future of electronic technology.

I decided to make my poster advocating that statement. I designed it with several key things in mind. First the size of the poster itself is 2.5 feet wide by 6 feet tall. I wanted it to stand out and be imposing in size. If you were to multiply the poster’s height 113 times you would have 678 feet. That is the size of one acre square of e-waste that the United States put out in 2002. Remember, 80% of that was not recycled. 678 feet tall is more than twice the size of the Statue of Liberty and 73 feet higher than the Seattle Space Needle all in about 90% the size of a football field. A daunting size.

In addition to the size of the poster, every element within it is a vector graphic that is life size to the actual product. I want people to see a huge poster of technology that they themselves might have towering over them to know it is only 1/113 the size of the actual amount of e-waste we produce annually. When I was designing the poster I decided to use a fresh and current look that tech-savy people would recognize, as well as people who are less technically knowledgeable would take notice of. This way I could draw them in from a distance to get the message at multiple levels. Personally I feel a poster should be able to send the message at a distance 70% and the remaining 30% is what you give them once they are drawn in to read it.

This is an overall image: