By Bonnie Alter, Source: Treehugger
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The annual summer show for graduate students at London’s Royal College of Art is a chance to see what the brightest and best students in their fields are thinking about.

Graduates in the School of Design can specialize in different areas. Many are concerned with issues of sustainability in their work. These bike helmets can be cheaply made out of pulped newspapers found on the subway. The designers would like to see them distributed free with bicycle rentals.
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In the Fashion Menswear, these shoes by Caterina Belluardo are stand-outs. A Sicilian, she is echoing the rich colours and textures of her country in her work. Although it is difficult to be completely sustainable when making footwear, these have cork in-soles and the leather is taken from diseased cows. She likes designing mens’ shoes because they can be more experimental.

Try telling that to Iva Minkova, who is making her high heels out of shattered glass, and flats out of concrete and jesmonite stone.
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Design Products is an area with some very interesting work this year. Kosuke Araki has carbonised discarded vegetables and bones into delicate looking black containers. He invented the processes involved himself and sees it as a way to use unwanted food and promote an end to waste.
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These cork pens by Ritika Karnani are a celebration of the many uses of cork. Pens are usually not recyclable, however these are reusable as well as being light weight, anti-bacterial and water resistant and very comfortable to hold. She makes them out of the left-overs from wine bottle corks.
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More from Design Products: this foraging apron by Lauren Davies. Made out of organic linen and sheepskin, it folds out from being a knapsack to collect foraged food, to an apron when you are cooking.

Marc Miralda Besa has designed a wood drying rack that doubles as a basket. He has also made a garbage can that is raised off the floor, so that you can clean under it, and open it with a kick of your foot from the bottom or side. Very handy.
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Innovation Design Engineering is where the more practical, and often socially minded, design work is shown. This roller is a sustainable washing system for households in Afghanistan and beyond. It is easily transported and uses kinetic force with a rolling mechanism to wash clothes as well as using little water.

Humi is the name for a tumble less clothes dryer, It is a low energy dryer that doesn’t emit additional moisture. Its heating system is a cartridge that takes heat from radiators.
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The Coralino Project has funding from James Dyson, so there are some big bets being hedged on this one. Coral is being destroyed in our seas at alarming rates by over-fishing. This is a method for farmers to grow coral which can then be returned to the sea.
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The History of Design is for the intellectuals: these students have a passion for the study of the past, be it yesterday or hundreds of years ago, and material cultural. Their projects consisted of a series of short videos on a broad range of subjects from the history of Cleveland’s shopping arcades to mail order catalogues, to ancestral halls in post-Mao China.and the use of horn in seventeenth century England. Fascinating stuff.

For her thesis, Imogen Adams travelled across the USA and looked into the myth of the 50’s diner. This photo of Pann’s, opened 1958, in Inglewood, California conveys a sense of the yearning and nostalgia that is invoked now by these old restaurants.