In the public works system, refuse is collected in two separate, yet equally important streams: the garbage, which sends household trash to the landfill, and the yard waste, which composts leaf litter and natural organic material.

These are their brown bags.

(This specimen was found in Albany, New York. One wonders how an Iowa City yard waste bag got there.)

Sunnfjord Miljøverk (Sunnfjord Environmental Agency) is a municipally owned waste management company serving Sunnfjord, Fjaler, Hyllestad, and Askvoll in Norway. Responsible for around 29,000 residents, it collects and transports waste to a main facility at Einestølen (Hesjedalen), where materials are sorted and prepared for reuse, recycling, or safe disposal. Several recycling stations and an administrative office in Førde support efficient service throughout the region.

The recent visual identity for Sunnfjord Miljøverk, designed by Feed design studio in Oslo, underscores the company’s mission to promote environmental responsibility and community well-being. The design employs a thoughtful pairing of typefaces: Youth from AllCaps and Store Norske Skandia from Skriftkompani. Youth brings a fresh, contemporary energy to the brand, signalling optimism and forward-thinking ideals, while Store Norske Skandia provides clarity, approachability, and a sense of trustworthiness. Notably, Skandia was designed by Arve Båtevik, whose name is derived from Båtevika, located in the area where Sunnfjord Miljøverk operates and serves the local community through its waste management services. This typographic connection adds a layer of regional identity to the visual system.

First edition, Flower Press, 1982

From Wikipedia:

Worms Eat My Garbage: How to Set Up & Maintain a Worm Composting System is a book by Mary Appelhof self-published in 1982 under the company name Flower Press. The book is still held as seminal reading in the field of vermicomposting.

The cover illustration and possibly also the cover design is by Mary Frances Fenton. Octopuss was apparently chosen for its vermicular qualities.

Worms Eat Our Garbage: Classroom Activities for a Better Environment is a sequel published in 1993. The cover art is largely the same, with adjusted colors. ITC Avant Garde Gothic was substituted by ITC Benguiat Gothic for secondary text.

The second, completely revised edition was published in 1997, “after 100,000 copies sold”.

Wasted transforms discarded materials into purposeful design, reimagining waste as the raw material of the future. From landfill to living room, each object serves a purpose: to inspire a more conscious way of living.

Designed by Max Lamb and hand-crafted by local artisans, Wasted blends global vision with traditional craft, reshaping our perspective and relationship with waste through the power of circular design.

The zine features 100 pages with dimensions of 145×270 mm. It comes with an exposed binding and was printed by Harapan Prima, Jakarta, on E-flute corrugated cardboard (cover)
and 90g/m² book paper (content) with grinded edges.

For the typography, Exposure and Geist Mono are paired with a self-designed script typeface, working title: Desa Font.

טראש, or Trash, was created as a central component of Or Shoshani’s final project in the Department of Industrial Design at Bezalel.

The magazine brings together various street actions involving people carrying trash, documentation from an Instagram page, on-site and remote interviews, photographs, reflections, poems, and sketches. In fact, the magazine is the project itself: on one hand, it documents the project and its evolution, and on the other, it disseminates the idea that “there is no such thing as trash,” operating under two distinct roles.

All the content was gathered, edited, and designed into an A4 magazine and printed in 20 copies.

Achinoam Tamar Virt provided artistic guidance and Nitsan Mayost graphic support. Nitsan Mayost, Liron Midani, Yonatan Shoshani, and Yael (a resident of Nachlaot) conducted interviews. The cover image is by Ruth Yarmolinsky. The project was supervised by Maya Ben David and printed at Codaf, Tel Aviv.

Ekoplus is a waste management center – a modern and neatly structured industry. While doing our research for the new visual identity, they demystified what they do and showed us various processes that take place in their facilities. These processes transform the waste into different things – fuel, water, metal, etc. – but most of all, energy.

Black linear pattern represents the waste that gets buried, and turquoise circles show what is produced with waste as a resource. Of course, everything takes place under Ekoplus’ supervision – serving as a barrier between waste and nature.

For the visual identity of Materia Seconda, a project focused on innovative solutions in waste reuse, we employed the Eugene Sans typeface. This choice was driven by its contemporary and clean aesthetic, aligning seamlessly with the project's emphasis on sustainability and modernity. The entire visual identity was crafted using JavaScript, allowing for dynamic and adaptable design elements.

Eugene Sans was utilized across various materials, including posters, brochures, and digital media, ensuring a cohesive and unified visual language. Its versatility enhanced readability while maintaining a distinctive and engaging appearance, effectively communicating the project's core values and innovative approach to environmental sustainability.

Materia Seconda is organized by Progetto GNAM in collaboration with CARTA – Museo e Parco d’Arte.

Centre to Periphery is a long-term design and research project that investigates discarding and the role of landfills, as an antiquated disposal method and their entrenchment within contemporary waste management. Constructed ever further on the periphery, landfills have become a “geospatial other” – a sacrificed zone – destined to receive the residues of hazardous waste streams, waste incineration and recycling streams, which to this day enables the centre to flourish and thus necessitates the landfills’ existence.

The project consists of several chapters and includes field research, interviews, visual journalism and documentation of various sites across the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium and Scotland.

Unwittingly, the language invented to describe the processes of managing waste has likely contributed to obscuring their implications and realities.

Likewise myths arose that suggest sense of control and the problem of surplus matter being resolved, such as recycling. All the while, it appears as if landfills are to stay with us for lack of scaleable alternatives such as zero waste. Might the deconstruction of these myths and language aid a different reading and hence engagement with landbodies built on the globalised fiction of carbon modernity?

The GeoVisions Landbodies Glossary tries to dissect language to bring audiences nearer to the reality of contemporary waste streams.

Risograph-printed in silver by Herr & Frau Rio, Munich.

The Wombles made their television debut over 50 years ago, bringing with them a strong environmental message long before eco-awareness became mainstream. Their influence led to the creation of ‘wombling’ groups across the country, dedicated to litter-picking and recycling.

Often seen as the original environmentalists, the Wombles’ inventive recycling methods have now been spotlighted in their updated brand identity. This refreshed image positions them as a seal of approval for sustainable businesses, offering a new layer of relevance.

With a fresh chapter ahead, the London-based agency How&How has taken on the task of reimagining the Wombles and their iconic characters, such as Great Uncle Bulgaria, Madame Cholet, Tobermory, and Orinoco. Staying true to the Wombles’ ethos, the agency adopted a reuse and recycle approach, incorporating visual elements from the past, including icons, illustrations, and pictograms.

Each character has been given its own sub-brand, complete with distinct color palettes and patterns, alongside a collection of illustrated icons reflecting their personalities from the original stories. The new verbal identity draws inspiration from the Wombles’ theme song and scripts and is paired with a fresh headline typeface, Kyle by French foundry Blaze Type.

Additionally, the Wombles now feature a redesigned W motif and wordmark. “For the wordmark, we aimed to stay true to the original chunky slab design, selecting Nordvest by Monokrom foundry as our base. We liked the way its horizontals are slightly thicker than its verticals,” says Cat How, the agency’s founder and creative director. Some of the pins and stickers use Fort Foundry’s Alkaline.

“This subtle inversion of traditional stroke weighting adds a quirky, playful quality that felt perfect for the eclectic spirit of the Wombles.”

While the digital illustrations and character icons are a departure from the furry models many remember from TV, these updates reflect the many versions of the Wombles that have appeared since their inception in Elisabeth Beresford’s 1960s books.

How&How’s initiative is focused on promoting brands dedicated to “making less stuff,” but it seems the new identity will also extend to the Wombles’ physical merchandise. It's hoped that this expansion will be handled carefully to preserve the environmental values that have made the Wombles so beloved.

Garbage. The Saga of a Boss Scavenger in San Francisco by Leonard (Lenny) Stefanelli was published by University of Nevada Press in 2017. The rotated title in tracked-out caps from Alternate Gothic is paired with Gotham XNarrow for the subtitle.

The City of San Francisco produces one million tons of waste per year and has no space for disposal, physically or legally, within its forty-seven square miles. Here waste management companies have wrestled with logistical challenges for decades, and yet regular garbage collection services have never stopped, except one day after the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Leonard (Lenny) Stefanelli has been a part of that ever-evolving industry for sixty-two years.

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Nature Morte is the first artistic collaboration between photographer Ruth Ward and Studio Omelette, a creative studio founded by Cécile Dumetier. During the height of the pandemic, Ward created a series of still life photographs, featuring discarded waste collected in the streets of East London.

The term Nature Morte is the French term for Still Life. The phrase literally translates into English as Dead Nature, an appropriate play on words that encompasses both the essence of the inspiration and the realisation of the images.

The series zeroes in on three iconic items: masks, gloves and paper cups. After two years of collecting, the images were presented in a fundraising exhibition at Dalston Curve Garden in spring 2023, culminating in a stylized reflection of a unique moment in time. Prints are sold through a dedicated website, with all benefits directly supporting the community garden in London’s Hackney borough.

In addition to posters and postcards advertising the show, Studio Omelette also produced an ​exhibition catalog. The blue of the catalog cover (which can also be seen on the website and the Instagram channel) is “a nod to the artificial colour of the masks and plastic gloves popping out in nature”. The designers opted for newsprint paper, in order “to give a continuity with the disposable items featured in our photographs”. Each chapter is introduced by copy written by Francesca Tenenbaum.

The typefaces used for the project are Production Type’s Cardinal and Dinamo’s ABC Favorit Mono. More specifically, the filigrane Italic style of Cardinal Fruit serves for the Nature Morte wordmark. The wider Cardinal Classic Mid (with extenders of moderate length) was used for text.

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Website

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We just love anniversaries. When in that celebratory mode, clients tend to be open to something a bit more special. For utility company Čistoća’s 70th anniversary we created an anniversary logo and a company monograph. Due to the volume and diversity of content for the book, we developed a set of graphic elements which we used to create infographics, to break large amounts of text and to emphasise specific content.

There are a lot of scanned old documents included in the book, and since they're written on the typewriter, we opted for Jornada Mono to accompany such feel in the quotes and infographics. For the body text we chose a more neutral Tabac Sans, and for the big titles and emphasized numbers – a very bold Orientation.

The book The Engineering of “Away” shows a collection of technologies (patents) used in the creation or maintenance of the land body. Screenprinted with waste ashes, the residues of waste incineration technology, the book questions the focus placed on patenting ever more technology that upholds the status quo rather, its site-specific problems rather than zooming out.

Part of a second Master in Geo—Design at Design Academy Eindhoven, thus gratitude to bb-bureau for the student licensing option for BallPill.

From Centre to Periphery is a long-term design & research project that investigates discarding and the role of landfills, as an antiquated disposal method and their entrenchment within contemporary waste management. Constructed ever further on the periphery, landfills have become a “geospatial other” – a sacrificed zone – destined to receive the residues of hazardous waste streams, waste incineration and recycling streams, which to this day enables the centre to flourish and thus necessitates the landfills’ existence. The project consists of several chapters and includes field research, interviews, visual journalism and documentation of various sites across the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium and Scotland.

From glass to glaze, waste to wonder, there’s a new supply in town.

Almost Useful used Alte Haas Grotesk and Serial B Blur for the identity and website of Other Supply.

Other Supply are an experimental ceramics studio that creates new possibilities with glass waste in Singapore, created by artist Genevieve Ang.

Photos by Jovian Lim.

Words by Accompany:

Round and Round is a digital platform that provides Sydney residents know-how and local connections to go circular and further a more sustainable Sydney.

We’re at a tipping point with consumption and waste in Australia. We love to buy the new, the next, the many, and we’re way too good at throwing things away! The latest stats revealing each Australian is producing around 2.95T of rubbish a year. Ow! Each acquisition and disposal we make begetting a black mark on planet earth and big bill in waste services.

This calls for a massive shift in people’s behaviours. It also calls for motivating resources to support and enable more responsible choices and actions.

Round and Round has been developed by Accompany as a tangible commitment and demonstration of our aim to create work that contributes to a better future. We want to drive behavioural change, encourage people to make better choices with their personal consumption and household waste and bring about a social movement that advocates a sustainable agenda.

The Andalusian capital Granada struggles with the same waste problems as many other European cities: abandoned furniture and household goods, lack of use of trash cans, inadequate waste separation and dog excrement. Against this background, the city council together with the environmental service provider PreZero, the local cleaning service Inagra and the creative agency Viernes developed a motivational campaign to keep the city clean.

The campaign “Granada limpia que te quiero limpia” (English: “Clean Granada, I love you clean”) aims to ensure that every individual can make a modest contribution to keeping the city clean. Lyrical, consensual messages that a large majority can agree with play the main role. For example, “If you call us, thanks to your help we will clean the corner you love so much.” Or: “Let’s celebrate Granada without leaving bottles and trash on the squares.” And, “My heart beats faster for Granada because the recycling bin is not confused with the trash can.”

“For the campaign, we held a competition asking residents to write a compliment for their city related to Granada’s clean, bright nature”, explains Pedro Vázquez Viernes of the agency of the same name. Visually, the compliments were paired with colorful illustrations by Barcelona-based cartoonist and comic book writer Genie Espinosa. Viernes chose Nikolai Condensed Regular, designed by Franziska Weitgruber from Italy, as the campaign font.

“We chose this typeface because of its classic, elegant style, in keeping with the culture and aesthetics of Granada: it’s not old-fashioned, but contemporary and playful.”

The space-saving, high-contrast condensed typeface proves to be extremely helpful because it keeps the wordy messages together in an easy-to-read manner. The dots of the i and full stops were replaced with glittery stars “to emphasize the cleanliness of the city,” says Pedro Vázquez Viernes. The campaign logo is set in the Catalan Art Deco font Mirtha Display by Guillermo Lizarzuay, while the sans serif Solanel, designed by Nico Inosanto from Switzerland, rounds off the campaign.

From Càphê Roasters:

Càphê Roasters is the first and only Vietnamese specialty coffee roastery in Philadelphia, operating in the Kensington neighborhood. We offer coffee primarily sourced from Vietnam as well as other Southeast and East Asian regions, specially roasted to deliver the best drinking experience. Càphê’s mission is to bring communities together as inspired by the common Vietnamese expression “đi uống cà phê” translating to “let’s get coffee,” which in Vietnamese culture signifies community engagement.

Alias Capo is used throughout. Read about the design in the case study on Dribble.

Close-up of the EU conveyor belt

Waste Streams – Tracing Romania's Tangled Trash is an installation part of the exhibition Turn Signals – Design is not a Dashboard on view at FABER, Timișoara, from September to November 2023.

For years, the Romanian press has decried the nation’s portrayal as ‘the dump of Europe’. All types of waste, both legal and illegal, find their way into Romania via boats and trucks, often facilitated by corruption, economic interests, and political connections. However, the fate of this waste within the country remains largely undisclosed. Waste Streams – Tracing Romania’s Tangled Trash investigated the waste management system by analysing statistics, policies, and legislation within Romania and across Europe. Illustrated in the form of a waste sorting facility, one conveyor belt is a visual representation of Europe’s waste production, export strategies, and associated directives, shedding light on continental waste dynamics. Another conveyor belt focuses on Romania’s waste infrastructure, and its health and environmental impacts. Drawing on data, news reports, and local knowledge, the project converges diverse entry points into a single stream of information. When viewed as a continuous flow of data involving imports, exports, and materials, the waste system is acknowledged as a trade mechanism, wherein waste functions as a commodity.

Authors: Cinzia Bongino (designer), Versavia Ancușa (computer science lecturer).
See more on Behance.

End of the conveyor belt

Map showcasing electronic manufacturers located in Romania

Stacked bar chart displaying waste generated in Europe by economic activity

Installation view

Opening title for one of the short films

The visual identity and scenography of the exhibition Il était une seconde fois (“once, there was a second time”) at la Halle aux Sucres was designed by Anaïs Vranesic and Martin Deknudt of Garage de Recherches Graphiques (GRG). The designers comment (translated):

The main constraint was to create the scenography and make the furniture from scrap. We went to meet the waste recovery center, the communications department of the Dunkirk urban community, and Dunkirk associations. Thus, we were able to recover materials from old exhibitions of the sugar market, materials from bulky items and glean different supports for the creation of the exhibition. All of these supports and materials represent, at the time of writing, 283,200 kg.

La Halle aux Sucres:
Sort, repair, create… From now on, we bring objects back to life! Fashion, furniture, home, decoration, food: do you want to reduce your waste, up-cycle, create and buy sustainably? Discover the exhibition There was a second time, a showcase of actions carried out in the region by associative actors or craftsmen, to reduce and recycle our waste. An original production by the artist duo GRG: entirely made from recovered and re-designed materials!

The main font in use is Gikit by Benoît Bodhuin. Information, set in both Gikit and a yet unidentified typeface, was printed partially using a handheld printer, causing and enabling distorted typography.

Plasticocène is an exhibition and an event organized by Polymer at la Friche la Belle de Mai in Marseille, France. It presents contemporary works whose creative processes are part of a reaction and awareness of the pollution of the entire water cycle by plastic waste. The exhibition brings together artists who use plastic waste as a raw material. Plastic is recycled, melted, sculpted and generates a cycle of transformation. Invited artists and collectives: Wendy Andreu, Côme Di Meglio, Marion Flament, Coline Le Quenven, Thomas Mailaender, James Shaw, Elvia Teotski, Maxime Verret, Ateliers Laissez Passer, Gangui Collectif, IGO Studio, Museo Aero Solar, NSDOS, Southway Studio.

Polymer invited Large to design the visual identity of the event, for which they produced a series of key visuals playing on a magnified representation of nature and a feeling of urgency with a striking red. For the identity, the French studio used Insitu Bold and Bold Italic.