Designating Single-Use Plastic as Ecobrickable

The Ecobrickable Designator Symbol & Kit for Company Plastic Transition

The Ecobrickable Designator is a simple symbol that can be placed on single-use plastic to designate that it should be ecobricked.  Our Kit contains all the graphic files necessary to print stickers on insert into your digital packaging designs. Ecobrickable Designation enables companies to start their transition from linear to circular design, today.

The Ecobrickable Designator & Stickers are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. This is to ensure the standardized and resonant usage of the designators by committed and resonant companies and individuals.   See copyright notice and terms below.

The majority of today’s products are manufactured without thought to where they will go once consumed. Many products are even designed to fail within a certain period to promote further consumption. This design ethic (or lack of it) is one of the root causes of plastic pollution.  Learning from the ecologies around us, the first step is to shift from linear consumption design (and dead-end plastic products) to cradle-to-cradle, circular design.  Afterall, plastic isn’t a ‘bad’ material in and of itself– its how we’ve been putting it to use that has been causing problems.  Designing a product as Ecobrickable, and clearly designating it as so, can be a giant leap for a company into the brave new world of circular design and regenerative business.  The GEA has developed guidelines and a designator symbol to assist companies in their plastic transition.

PT Marimas uses the ecobrickable designator icon on their plastic product packaging.

Plastic Transition

For many companies making the switch to circular design and extended producer responsibility (EPR) appears to require a massive investment in manufacturing, material sourcing as well as implementing new systems to reabsorb their dead products. Furthermore it may seem that the required organic materials are still on the horizon.  The transition can appear daunting!

Making a product ecobrickable is a first step in a business’s plastic transition.

With a little forethought and advanced planning, a product can be made easily and effectively ecobrickable.  In this way, ecobrickable designs enables companies and designers to make their first step to cradle-to-cradle and ayyew vision.  Designating a product or package as ecobrickable gives it a next life and purpose.  When ecobricked, the plastic is saved from a fate of industrial recycling, incineration, and/or dumping.  The ecobricked plastic is transformed into a reusable building block. Ecobricks and their applications are themselves cradle-to-cradle and follow regenerative principles, enabling an indefinite, localized cycle of reuse of the ecobricked plastic.

Ecobrickable Design Guidelines

The GEA has established simple criteria to meet when designing your product or packaging.  It is obligatory that your product meet these stipulation in order to use Ecobrickable Designator Symbol…

Your product or packaging must…

  • … not contain substances that will corrode PET plastic over time.
  • … not contain any primary or secondary biodegradable material.
  • … can be easily disassembled, broken or cut into parts that can fit within the 22mm diameter neck of a standard PET bottle.
  • .. maximizes the ease of disassembly for this purpose.
  • … not have sharp protrusions that could puncture an ecobrick from within while it is being packed down.
  • … not contain reactive chemicals, or if so, these components are clearly marked as un-ecobrickable.
The GEA Ecobrickable Designator Kit (EDK)

The Designator Symbol can be printed as a sticker or added directly into your packaging design.

The GEA Ecobrickable Designator Symbol is for use on plastic products or packaging to indicate that it can be transformed into an ecobrick.  To use the symbol the plastic must meet the Ecobrickable Design Guidelines above.  The symbol is available in the Ecobrickable Designator Kit (EDK) which includes the vector files, sticker designs, fonts, example photos, user license and the full details of our Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.  The EDK and usage license is now available for purchase on the GoBrik Shop.   You may also register for the GEA Catalyst Program which includes both the EDK and our powerful PTR tracking dashboard and which tracks all the ecobricked plastic catalyzed by your company’s social action.

The Ecobrickable Designator Kit contains:

1. Ecobrickable Designator Symbols & Stickers PDF: This file can be edited by designers to grab all the elements they need to put the stickers and logos on your packaging designs. The logo is vectorized meaning that it will maintain its scalable high resolution no matter what size it is used at.

2. The GEA Catalyst Agreement: This document lays out in detail the commitments required to use the Ecobrickable Designator Symbols and Stickers as well as the nature of the agreement between participants in the GEA Catalyst Program.

3. Fonts: To build the Ecobrickable Designator Symbols & Stickers we have used the open source fonts Arvo and Open Sans. We’ve included them here for your convenience. They are not needed to print or use the PDF, however, they could be useful to designers wishing to match the styling of the designators with your design.

4. Photos of how to print the stickers on A3 sheets. Show to the printer so they understand your goal– this can save you lots of time!

Copyright Notice & Creative License (CC BY-ND 4.0)

The Ecobrickable Designator & Stickers are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. This is to ensure the standardized and resonant usage of the designators by committed and resonant companies and individuals.

The Global Ecobrick Alliance (GEA) reserves full copyright on the EDS Art and all the versions above v1.1, and all subsequent versions and variations by the GEA. The Ecobrickable Designators are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. In other words, You are free to share, copy and print the Ecobrickable Designators on any material that meets the GEA ecobrickable spefications (see below) under the following terms: Attribution — You must maintain the link to Ecobricks.org/how but not in any way that suggests the GEA endorses you or your use (unless you have a registered and active GEA Catalyst Account).

Non Derivatives

If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material in a way that it can be shared. No additional restricting — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything with the designator logo that the license permits. In addition the commercial sale of the Ecobrickable Designator or any derivitative designs is prohibited.

Circles & Cycles

The Earth’s biosphere operates in perfect cycles of localized re-use. From a tree’s leaves to the tree itself, every ecological element finds a new life at its end.   The fallen leaf helps the next tree grow– all within a few square meters.  In this way, ecologies operate in infinite cirlces of re-purposed utility, with every element re-cyclable within its surrounding ecology in a way that enriches and greens.

We can learn from this!  We can design similar cradle-to-cradle circles of utility that enrich local ecologies. In this way, we can plan for the end of our products and packages.  When a product comes to its end, it can then begin its new journey, in its new form.

Ecobrickable Product Gallery

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The Ecobrickable Designator Kit

The Ecobrickable Designator is a simple symbol that can be placed on single-use plastic to designate that it should be ecobricked.  Our Kit contains all the graphic files necessary to print stickers on insert into your digital packaging designs.

For Companies

The GEA Catalyst Program eanables companies large and small to take their Green Business to a whole new level!

Learn More

Secure your plastic during CoVid-19 by ecobricking! Together we can keep plastic from being contagious, from slowing our city’s waste systems and from reaching the environment. Learn more about the newly released GEA White Paper and Enhanced Ecobricking Guidelines

CoVid-19 Ecobricking

What is Plastic Transition?

A bold new key performance indicator that lets you track your Plastic Transition-- the PTR shows one's transition from waste to zero-waste to ayyew!

You can purchase the Ecobrickable Designator Kit on the GoBrik Regen Store using Paypal, credit card or brikcoins.

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