Cholesterol Lighting: Old Made New
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA 
on 07. 6.06
Cholesterol is a clever new light designed by Shoko Cesar, Greg Ball, and Darryl Barton. Made from reused clear plastic egg cartons, the design debuted at the THAW 2006 show, which just wrapped up earlier this week. Say the designers, "North America's rich and over-indulgent culture generates millions of tons of waste that flow into the landfill every year. Cholesterol lighting helps to block the flow of waste by adding beauty to our devalued waste products. By reusing material that is on its way to the landfill, Cholesterol adds aesthetic value to a disposable material and asks the user to reconsider: what materials are disposable, and what materials can be reused for their aesthetic value." For the first time this year, all THAW entrants had to incorporate sustainability into their forward-looking designs. ::IDEA via ::MoCo Loco
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It's always great to see "green" products being posted on your web site and it's a good looking lamp, but I'm wondering in which landfill can you get thousands of egg cartons in a pristine shape and who is going to collect it for you? It's one thing to buy a dozen egg cartons at the local grocery to make a one-off piece (and eat lots of omelets in the process)and it's a totaly different one to make it work on a mass scale.
If you're going to manufacture those lamps using new egg cartons directly from the supplier you're only adding to the problem. It's nice to have an idea but as an Industrial Designer I'd like to see projects that have been thought throw and are of a real value.
A good example is the previous piece on your web site - the Bazura Bags - which gives a complete picture as for the manufacturing process, from collecting the used pop cans(I like the deal with the kids a lot)through manufacturing them while considering all aspects, including not using slave work. Good job.
Eli:
Thanks for your comments. You quite right that this is only a one-off piece. This design was made not for production, but to ask some questions.
What we were after here, was to pursue the idea that perhaps eggcartons could be saved and collected the same way we collect cans and bottles in depots? What if there were a program that saved packaging like this, and designers had acccess to it while designing new products? Why are discarded egg cartons not valuable? Perhaps the products designers produce on mass-scale could incorporate reused items? Designers have alot of say, and alot of power here.
Anyway before one is too critical, I think it is important to look at the big picture, and try to see how we could change our thinking in North America to accept reused materials as "valuable". As well, we need to stop looking at Industrial Design only in terms of mass-scale, and include the smaller steps we can make to help change our consumption habits.