LG’s Designer AI, Tilda, Unveils Project for World Environment Day, June 5th

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES AT HAND:

PHYSICAL WASTE FROM FASHION: Each year, 92 million tons of fabric is discarded globally as waste. That’s equivalent to one truckload of clothing thrown away every second. Figures predict this number will surpass 130 million tons by 2030.  Additionally, the pigments used to dye the fabric bleed into our rivers and streams, exacerbating water pollution. If you take into consideration that 200 tons of water are expended to produce a single ton of fabric, the end-to-end processes of clothing industries are serious menaces to environmental efforts. 

DIGITAL WASTE At the same time, ‘digital waste,’ or stagnant, unused data is becoming a very real environmental issue that contributes to our carbon footprint in a big way by using up excessive amounts of storage energy.   Though often overlooked, the carbon emissions produced by one office worker’s annual emails is equal to the carbon produced by a large vehicle travelling 200 miles. The energy costs of storing digital waste are a key contributor to our overall carbon emission levels.

TILDA’s MESSAGE:

As something that’s created with the intention of being worn and discarded, certain levels of physical waste have simply become accepted as an inevitable byproduct of fashion. Tilda’s Digital Upcycling Project is challenging this problematic notion that fashion and the environment cannot be interdependent. If even a modicum of secondhand clothing can be upcycled, and if digital upcycling can mitigate the issue of over-production by the tiniest margin, these can all add up to combating the negative impacts of fashion on the global environment.

Likewise, each one of us can also play a key role in minimizing waste in the digital space. While we may not think of sending an email as contributing to waste, 4g of carbon are emitted for every outgoing email. As a single unit, it may not seem like much, but on a global perspective, every single email sent and stored contributes to our energy problem.  If 2.3 billion internet users each deleted just ten emails, this would account for 1.7 million GB of energy saved on data archiving.

Tilda’s Digital Upcycling Project is more than just a result of planetary imagination – it’s a symbol of ‘planetary hope’.

More information on Tilda’s Digital Upcycling can be found at dupbytilda.com

Also further information on the Digital Upcycling Project Earth Action Number can be found at UNEP World Environment Day Official Site