The bodega project
In case I don't get to do this project I want it written down so someone else can. Take your NYC bodega (corner store or deli for anyone who's never heard that term), and ask the owner if you can take a photo (or 3D scan if you can) of every item in the store.
Make a public platform for this catalogue. Allow citizen scientists to submit research into every 2nd and 3rd order raw material into this item, from ingredients to packaging. Let them also contribute information on how ecologically sound they are: does their packaging break down? Are their ingredients available in this hemisphere?
Then critically, allow citizen designers to submit re-imaginations of each product. Promote products that have missing information or are ecologically high-impact to front of the catalogue. Reach out to lots of news outlets, design publications, and university design departments to generate buzz. One of the products in a bodega would make for a great semester project, paired with readings from cradle-to-cradle.
post-industrialism-is-a-design-problem. Holding up a normal everyday institution like a bodega as a site of investigation and innovation on that front would let us all tackle the problem of ecological design, and give a dozen new design patterns to apply elsewhere on the war against ecological degradation.