Did it surprise me that the “recycling symbol” at the bottom of my yogurt container had nothing to do with its recyclability? Yes. (As it turns out, my city doesn’t take #5s.) So why was it there? My curiosity led to findings around which I built a design class. […] Our class is not about recycling per se. It is about understanding the systems we live in, finding the flaws and evaluating them. Our three Rs are research, rethink, redesign.

That last sentence lists the elements missing from the CF light adoption story. Treating them as “different” light bulbs isn’t working. The industry needs to rethink and redesign!

Meaney’s students came up with some interesting approaches to help folks make better decisions at the grocery store. These systems could work just as well for selling CF lights.

For instance, in-aisle education can come from stacking the shelves differently or displaying more information on the floor. (The original images aren’t that big; links just click through to the original piece.)

What about after purchasing your CF lights? You do know where your local recycler is right? No? Check out the handy list printed on your receipt. No excuses now.

It doesn’t have to be complicated.

How can we design compelling experiences to exploit people’s sense of smell? Displays of perfumery and taste enhancers are common. A more thrilling, if somewhat bizarre example, has been the application of modern chemical science to recreate the smells of London during successive historic periods, for a timeline walk-through at the Museum of London. Most challenging of all? Creating the smell of the rotting dead during the 13th Century calamity of the Black Death (recalling Monty Python’s classic line, aBring out your dead! Bring out yer dead!a). A laboratory commissioned to develop these smells reportedly was all too successful: the display is a repellent success.