This year’s Blog Action Day is focused on water. (see petition)While there are several issues surrounding water, from illnesses that dirty water causes in the developing world to pollution from oil spills, what thing that personally frustrates me is seeing plastic litter in water. It’s persistent, noticeable, bothersome to people and harmful to ecosystems. It is even more frustrating to think of the energy wasted on making these plastic products, which are petroleum-based, of course, before they end up as physical pollutants.

Save the Bay, a pioneering environmental protection organization,  has been releasing a yearly look at the worst locations for trash pollution around the San Francisco Bay. Their 2010 Bay Trash Hot Spots, lists 225 polluted shoreline areas and creeks around the Bay that are clogged with plastic debris.

Plastic is not biodegradable, but it physically degrades from UV exposure. So, in the ocean, a lot of plastic pollutants are tiny little bits that are hard to see, but perfect for animals to eat. I first heard about this watching one of the videos from the Plastiki voyage which studied the Pacific Gyre. You can check out this very cool infographic from the Plastiki folks that shows a bit more about plastic distribution in the ocean.

A lot of municipalities have experimented with banning the use of plastic bags, and there’s a growing movement towards that in the Bay Area. I don’t think the efficacy of such measures has really been studied. I feel like it could be a false feeling of having made an effort. What is the greatest source of plastic out there; plastic shopping bags or industrial nurdle spills?

Regardless of its validity in pollution prevention, reducing the use of plastic bags is certainly a step in the right direction. The statistics are shocking. From Save the Bay: “Amazingly, Californians use approximately 19 billion plastic bags every year. But here is the kicker: the average use time of a plastic bag is only 12 minutes!” And the baggers at my local supermarket wonder why I don’t want a single loaf of bread in two plastic bags!

I recently watched Seth Godin’s 2006 talk entitled “This is Broken,” embedded below. In it he talks about how user experience can go wrong because products are poorly designed or designed to be frustrating. He covers a number of examples of failures to consider the perspective of the people who receive, interact with or use designed objects.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-4101280286098310645&hl=en&fs=true]

One way things can be broken is intentional – the company behind them considers the damage to their brand to be less expensive than the potential benefits of the customer being frustrated in their attempts to use the product. Seth’s example of this is gift cards. They are intentionally designed to make it difficult to use the full amount on them. So, the sponsoring company takes the unused portion of the cash that was deposited on the card – with a very specialized card or a somewhat lazy recipient, this can be the entire value of the card.

I think another example of intentionally broken products is mail-in rebates. How many people actually send those things in? Perhaps more on big ticket items, but if that rebate is less than, say, 50 bucks, I’m willing to bet that the utilization rate is very low. Yet, the idea of the rebate still influences people’s purchasing decisions. The customer in the store deducts the rebate from the price of the product in their head, and probably does intend to follow through, but then goes home and forgets all about it.

I recently broke one such broken system. A few weeks ago, I saw a good deal on a 30-pack of beer. It was on sale for $18.99. “Fabulous,” I thought, “that’s less than 70 cents per!” Only when I set the case on the check-out conveyor belt did I notice that it had a mail-in rebate coupon attached to the side. So, by chance, I had avoided being influenced by the mail-in rebate when I made my purchasing decision. The rebate scaled up according to the number of beers in the pack; for the 30-pack, it was six dollars off. For the cost of less than five minutes of my labor and a forever stamp bought, uh, forever ago, I was on my way to getting my six dollars. This would bring the price down to less than 50 cents per 12 ounces of frosty beverage, making for some very happy hours indeed.

Last week, I got the check (in the form of a postcard!) and deposited it on one of my next trip to the ATM. They tried to be broken, but I got ’em.

Not that I really agree with the concept of “getting” others – I mean it’s fine for your gangly friends, but as a world view it buys into the fallacy of self/other dichotomy.)

Does the world need a good kick in the pants?

The makers of the original Girl Effect video have produced another. It’s the same slickly produced, typography-heavy animation used to send a simple, yet powerful message; improving the lives of girls under 12 is the best strategy for helping the developing world. The girl effect is “the unique potential of 600 million adolescent girls to end poverty for themselves and the world.”This video is a little more complex in terms of the action, the fact that there are characters, and how they elaborate on the ramifications of reaching these girls. I think it maintains a good deal of the impact, though, by sticking with its pared-down aesthetic and high contrast, kinetic typography.

There are three ways to get involved, donating, sharing the video and learning more. (That is, if you aren’t an international development professional or media person) Your contribution goes to these programs which include well-respected microfinance institutions and other programs all over the world. You can also spread the video on Twitter, Facebook or by email. They have an impressive numbers of followers, “like”-ers and YouTube views, but they could always use some more vectors for their viral spread.

In the wake of a the suicide of Billy Lucas, sex columnist Dan Savage has created a YouTube-based project called It Gets Better. The project encourages anyone who wants to record a video of encouragement for gay young people so that they know that as shitty as their lives might be, things will eventually get better.

If you’re gay or lesbian or bi or trans and you’ve ever read about a kid like Billy Lucas and thought, “Fuck, I wish I could’ve told him that it gets better,” this is your chance. We can’t help Billy, but there are lots of other Billys out there—other despairing LGBT kids who are being bullied and harassed, kids who don’t think they have a future—and we can help them.

This is the most intensely bittersweet movement I have seen in a long time. It’s unutterably sad that some kids are still subjected to horrific baiting so intense that it drives them to suicide – and that it’s often unofficially sanctioned by their communities. It’s also beautiful that there are people with the perspective and means to deliver messages of hope. In the words of Harvey Milk (which Savage also quotes), “You gotta give ’em hope.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IcVyvg2Qlo&fs=1&hl=en_US]

Repower America put together this video (also embedded below) in defense of the Clean Air Act, which was passed40 years ago. To capture the simple idea that clean air belongs to all of us, and not pollution spewing businesses, Repower America collected pictures and videos of supporters with handmade signs. I think the final video is an excellent combination of powerful text (both the handmade signs and the digital titles) and the personal, grassroots sentiment. I just received another email asking for supporters to take pictures with signs. I guess it’s a new membership engagement trend. I think it’s a good idea, but we’ll have to see how long it stays fresh if so many people jump on the bandwagon.

Check it out the video and, if you like it, pass it on.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DruAVXatMCI&fs=1&hl=en_US]