The Trees (1991)

Alongside the various student films from UK universities that make up the bulk of the 1992 Connoisseur Video release Green Animation are a series of 30-second entries for a contest hosted by MTV under the banner of "World Problems, World Solutions".  One of the indisputable stand-outs of this series is The Trees (1991), which combines hypnotic imagery with wickedly tongue-in-cheek humour in order to deliver a message about the importance of recycling.  If the dream-like background imagery looks weirdly familiar to fans of Texan film-maker Richard Linklater, it's because this short was the brainchild of Bob Sabiston, who went on to found the Austin-based production company Flat Black Films, and to create the animation program "Rotoshop", which gave the Linklater films Waking Life (2001) and A Scanner Darkly (2006) their unique visual flavour.  Indeed, the tangled, untamed backdrop of The Trees looks as it could have come straight from the bizarre dream landscape that Wiley Wiggins' character must traverse in Waking Life, here given a distinctly (but also hilariously) nightmarish twist as the trees exact their revenge upon a kid with a somewhat negligent attitude toward paper disposal.

Sabiston would find further success with another MTV contest, 1993's "Free Your Mind", for which he submitted one of the winning entries, Free Your Couch.  His 1990 collaboration with Mike McKenna, Grinning Evil Death, was also featured in the first episode of MTV's Liquid Television in 1991.

As far as I'm aware, The Trees is currently the only short from the Green Animation collection to have made it to Blu Ray.  You can find it as an extra on Arrow Video's 2016 release of Waking Life (a wonderful package it is too).