Ocean Sole is a marine conservation organisation from Kenya. They collect a large number of discarded flip-flops from the beach and sea and transform them into artefacts.

Their approach has brought about a shift in thinking for me as a designer.

There is no way to stop the pollution and waste that comes with the demands of a large population in this modern society. However,  a great amount of design work is  about protecting the environment from the start and t is clear that these design pieces calling for people to use certain goods less are not strongly influential.

So why don’t we change our thinking to find more practical solutions when we can’t stop something from happening.

Like what the organisation is doing, we cannot stop people to use the flip-flops, but we can use discarded flip-flops to make handicrafts that promote the idea of environmental protection on the one hand, and economic development and employment in the area on the other.

Inspiration about the concept of environmental design / Dian Wang / Environmental Design: Materials, Ecologies, Futures (2022-2023)[SEM1] by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0