Sally Dominguez

I am almost ready to launch a new range of consumer products and I have been obsessed with containing them in recycled content plastic bottles.  It seems crazy not to be using recycled plastic when the contents are not for consumption...and even more crazy that I cant find any suppliers of such bottles in Australia.  BUT I have just found a company in the USA who can do up to 100% recycled HDPE content in opaque white bottles - and if I have my way it will start a similar trend down under.
Another curious observation about dealing with the packaging industry - many of the sales people seem to be repeating a tired and generally incorrect line: that bottles cannot be recycled if they have paper labels on them.  Bizarre if you just stop to think that in order to melt the plastic into reusable pellets it needs to be heated to way higher than the burn temperture of plastic.....
Anyhoo on my internet trawling to seek out kindred green bottle companies I came across Mike Biddle, "The Garbage Man" who has cut across the confusion by using mining industry high tech to efficiently sort and recycle plastic waste and "fluff".  Check out his TED talk here:

I am up to Day 2 judging the Consumer Products section of this years Australian Design Awards and I am excited not only because there are some terrific products but also because I am working with Chuck Pelly, founder of DesignWorks and the LA Auto Challenge competition and designer of lots of cool things.  Chuck is currently designing some game-changing stuff for WalMart and GE and it is great getting his perspective on the products.
Day 1 was all about blenders and coffee makers and its interesting that the $350 coffee maker has become the judges' "go to" coffee machine in preference to other machines costing $3000+.  This particularly perky little number looks like it could have been designed by Andre Putman or a really in-form early Alessi and I think I might need one.  It could well take one of the main accolades in the competition.
Today was all about cleaners: robot floor cleaners, mops, brooms and dustpans and a total of 9 vacuums, the makers of which all claimed that environmental design was a "high priority" yet only one of the 9 contained recycled material content.  That one blitzed it with a 55% recycled content plastic and no compromise on design, detail or structure.  We are having lots of fun - as you will see from the pics and video below - long days but lots to pique the interest.  And several designs we saw on the New Inventors that have now been produced and launched into the Aussie market.  More soon!