By: Basra Khalid Bashir

Awaken for the Green Side

We were shown a video recently in our Design History class, called “Inconvenient Truth”. It is a person’s inspirational struggle to spread the word to those who are naive and ignorant about global warming and sustainable living. Many people may have seen this video but I saw it for the first time and I believe there are still many people out there who need to watch it.

The purpose behind watching this movie was a project that we have been assigned to do for class. We are designers and one of the focuses in the design industries is green design and sustainability. Hence, it is our responsibility to find solutions through design and come up with a “green” idea.

After watching the video the professor told us something they do in the U.S. but not in Qatar. He was once replacing the ink cartridge in the professional printers in one of the design studios. He took the old empty cartridge and gave it to the I.T. department so it could be recycled as it was a huge cartridge made up with so much plastic and shouldn’t have been wasted. Unfortunately, the I.T. staff had no choice but to throw it away because according to them, there isn’t a facility in Qatar they could send it to for recycling. If there is one though, it needs to be brought to public attention more.

This stimulated me to think, so what if there is no recycling place here? Does recycling only mean giving old things to factories and having them make something else out of them? Even making something else out of recycled material will need a large amount of energy, electricity, resources, etc. You’ve got an empty cartridge? Cut it open or in half and turn it into a toolbox, a palette, or anything else you can think of if you get creative.