You’ve seen garbage island.

Plastic beach. The great Pacific trash vortex.

So embarrassing for us humans.

All that waste says “the people on this planet did not think this through.” A single bag of Hot Cheetos tossed roadside on I-95 has the power to take down an innocent pod of whales and we call this civilization?!

But, wait.

That’s why we have recycling. Recycling is genius. Recycling is pure top of the food chain ingenuity. Instead of killing whales (and maybe an eagle or two) you recycle that bag of Hot Cheetos by putting it in a special garbage can called a “recycling bin” which allows garbage persons to find that bag, break it back down into raw materials and turn it, as if by magic back into even more bags filled with delicious cheesy snacks. (I’ve never had a Hot Cheeto, so I’m making some assumptions here.)

Everything works great!

Recycling allows us to endlessly and efficiently create.

It saves resources and lets us eat snacks and celebrate with disposable party hats.

Recycling is key to our survival.

But, I’m here to tell you that being green isn’t just for hippies and frogs.

Recycling is the most important part of your creative practice for exactly the same reasons.

Consistent creativity requires green thinking. And anyone can learn to break down ideas into raw materials and re-purpose them to fix old things and create new things better.

Here are three ways you can upcycle your ideas and save the planet (or at least your job).

Become a hoarder.

If you’re going to start upcycling ideas it’s incredibly important to write down every single thing you think of, hear, read or notice. Commit to the chaos. As Steven Johnson talks about in this talk on “commonplace books” the tools you choose are important because they change the way you think. Digital tools that create efficiency therefore make you less messy and less creative. Hoard the detritus of your creative practice. Take the time to identify some basic non-digital tool for notes and sketching. Choose a notebook or other paper device to carry with you, but avoid corny notebooks that look cool and you can’t carry. I use a notecard holder, these really nice notecards and double-sided Sharpies. My materials are pocket-sized and allow me to work on boards, on a desk, at a bar and everything stays together. Think through the workflow to digitize your thoughts and a storage solution for every single scrap of paper.

Dumpster Dive

There’s great stuff in the trash if you aren’t afraid to dig into the muck. People usually try to generate ideas by focusing on cool stuff they’ve seen, or something they like, or by identifying a killer app that everyone will love. But, trying to invent something great is a loser’s game. If you want to find something new, start at garbage island and look for trash that could be re-purposed. Innovation is about discovery that happens in the dark hallways, side streets and dusty undercrofts of the mind. It’s not good, clean, fun for crisp collars and happy, smiling people. It’s borne from the puerile disgust for the small broken details of our life. Only a problem you hate can lead you to invent a solution you love.

Technology is disposable.

Technology breaks. All of it. Every time. And you can’t recycle it. It’s too complicated. So, treat tech like what it is. Dead end garbage.
Real ideas are easy to recycle because you can execute a good idea out of any material. If your idea is tied to a specific technology it’s not an idea, it’s a gimmick, and it’s probably not a great use of technology. Don’t worry how things work, because people who know how things function are boring nerds and you’re a genius. (And don’t even pretend you know how your Alexa works.) Embrace your lack of technical knowledge and focus on things you know how to do. Fix problems you have, and make solutions you can build. Good ideas usually use places, hands, people and products you don’t plug in. And if you absolutely need a voice assistant to accomplish your idea, then you have a great tech idea no one will ever need.

So, keep your mind dirty genius. Just don’t forget to clean up when you’re finished.