The Landfill Prize: Nominate some junk!

Yesterday, we received a message from John Naish asking whether we would encourage our readers to "nominate something utterly shameful" for the Landfill Prize? Happily!

The Landfill Prize is a great initiative, seeking to highlight the most "planet-trashingly wasteful" consumer goods invented each year.  Among last year's nominees (here's 2008's winners, too):

The motorized ice cream cone. Finally! A reprieve from the awful burden of ice cream eating. The nominator, Sarah Dryden, writes: For those too lazy to twist their wrists when eating an ice-cream, there is this stupid gadget. You pop your cone in it, stick your tongue out and it does all the hard work for you, ensuring no drips get onto your hand. You can even stick it in the dishwasher – no need to waste energy on washing up.

Plane Sheets! Sarah Dryden, eyes on the crap-prize again, writes: As if flying wasn't bad enough for the environment, now irresponsible travellers can step up their wasteful footprint with this bizarre plane seat cover. Designed to "transform a tired, overused airline seat into a cozy, happy place... while keeping at bay germs, crumbs and spills from previous passengers," this lurid example of bad taste will put any fears of catching the plague whilst flying at bay. You can even have it monogrammed. Classy.

We've all been guilty of purchasing things that are ultimately more wasteful than they're worth, and the Landfill Prize reminds us, while giving us a good laugh, why it's important that we curb our consumer impulses; the prize "is a plea for us to say, 'Thanks. We've got enough stuff.'"

So, please, head over and nominate the junkiest junk you wish would have bypassed production, and gone straight to the landfill as only a ludicrous idea, discarded because certainly we're too smart to want to clutter or lives (and planet) with crap like that.

#