Have you seen CCA's three-bin recycling system on campus? Better yet, are you clued in to how the system works? Because some students have been confused by what goes where (and why) involved in this new color-coded system, not everyone has been willing to participate—or even if they have been willing to participate, they’re not always successful in reaching the correct bin.

So in an effort to promote the relatively new waste-management system (one that encourages proper separation for recycling and composting), CCA enlisted the ingenuity of two design students to devise an installation that calls attention to the college's effort to uphold a more sustainable waste-management system.

CCA's San Francisco campus Director of Facilities and Operations Michael Welch solicited assistance from students to build an installation that would explain more clearly the vital recycling efforts the college is making, as well as promote the college’s effort to comply with California’s new mandate passed last August that requires residents and businesses to separate their waste into compostable and recyclable materials. (Read more about California's mandate, including what the fines are for failing to comply.)

Enter Ellen Keith, a third-year Graphic Design student and Indhira Rojas, a second-year student in the MFA Graduate Program in Design, who volunteered to create an installation that would further explain the recycling processing, including providing additional information as to why the three-bin system is so important.

“Of course we have our own personal interests invested in this project as well; I'm doing my thesis on recycling and waste management, while Ellen is also very involved in sustainable practices,” Indhira shared.

Their eco-friendly installation took between two and three days to complete and was displayed at the San Francisco campus in the Nave for an equal number of days, attracting the interest of hundreds of students, faculty, and staff. And passers-by took time out of their busy schedules to not only admire the installation’s technical aspects but also to think about where to place their trash in the future. Voila!

Art imitating life or life imitating art?

Related

Review the CCA slideshow for additional images.

Watch a related video of a guerrilla-marketing intervention project that set out to document just one-fifth of the trash created in a single weekend here at CCA. The project was part of Eric Heiman's Graphic Design III course in fall 2009.