Environment: Generation Awake ‘Young Designers Contest’ winning designs exhibited during Green Week

Four young designers from Bulgaria, France, Italy, and Lithuania have been chosen as winners in the European Commission’s Generation Awake campaign Young Designers Contest. The four winning designs, and their creators, will feature in a special exhibition during Green Week, the biggest annual conference on European environmental policy, taking place in Brussels from 3-5 June 2014. The exhibition will also showcase the designs of the eight contest finalists, two from each of the four countries, whose designs were awarded second and third place.

In line with this year’s campaign theme of ‘waste as a resource’, the contest invited budding designers from four EU countries to submit designs for products (clothes, toys, artworks, jewellery, furniture, etc.) that follow the principle of ‘upcycling’ – the process of converting waste into new materials or products of better quality or environmental value. Applicants used diverse materials in their designs, giving new life to old newspapers, wood, tissue, metal and plastic.

The aim of the contest is to spread the idea of reuse of materials among young people, and to inspire reflection about our planet’s limited resources, the value of waste, and how to use creativity in tackling environmental issues.

The Young Designers Contest is part of the current phase of the European Commission's 'Generation Awake' campaign that focuses on the environmental, economic, social and personal consequences of using resources unsustainably. Targeting 25-to 40-year-olds, with a special focus on young urban adults and families with small children, Generation Awake aims to make consumers aware of the consequences their consumption patterns, illustrating the benefits if they choose to act differently. At the heart of the campaign is a fully interactive website available in all 24 official EU languages.

Since its launch in October 2011, the campaign website has been visited over 1 million times, the campaign videos have been viewed by over 7 million people, and the Facebook page has attracted more than 137 000 fans. The current phase of the campaign has also included a photo competition for suggestions on turning rubbish into a resource, and media and PR activities in four focus countries (Bulgaria, France, Italy, and Lithuania), including the Young Designers Contest.

Background

Behind the ‘light-hearted’ campaign is a serious message: waste often contains valuable materials that can be reintroduced into the economic system. Today, a significant amount of potential secondary raw material is lost to the European Union's economy due to poor waste management. In 2010 total waste production in the EU amounted to 2 520 million tons, an average of 5 tons per inhabitant and per year.

Despite EU-wide recycling targets and successes in certain areas, Europe's waste is still a hugely under-used resource. A study prepared for the European Commission estimates that full implementation of EU waste legislation would save EUR 72 billion a year, increase the annual turnover of the EU waste management and recycling sector by EUR 42 billion, and create over 400 000 new jobs by 2020.

By reducing, reusing, repairing and recycling waste, Europeans can all contribute to a vibrant economy and a healthy environment, saving environmental and economic resources, and helping to push Europe towards a more circular economy.

For information on the Young Designers’ Contest and the campaign:

Campaign multilingual website
Facebook fan page
Photo gallery (Top 10 finalists per country)
Online Resource Efficiency Platform (OREP)
Green Week 2014

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