Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

Amazon.com Price: $15.88 (as of 11/10/2019 07:42 PST- Details)

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Description

A manifesto for a radically different philosophy and practice of manufacture and environmentalism

“Reduce, reuse, recycle” urge environmentalists; in other words, do more with less in an effort to minimize damage. But as this provocative, visionary book argues, this approach perpetuates a one-way, “cradle to grave” manufacturing model that dates to the Industrial Revolution and casts off as much as 90 percent of the materials it uses as waste, much of it toxic. Why not challenge the notion that human industry will have to inevitably damage the natural world?

In fact, why not take nature itself as our model? A tree produces thousands of blossoms in an effort to create another tree, yet we do not imagine its abundance wasteful but protected, beautiful, and highly effective; hence, “waste equals food” is the first principle the book sets forth. Products might be designed so that, after their useful life, they provide nourishment for something new-either as “biological nutrients” that safely re-enter the environment or as “technical nutrients” that circulate within closed-loop industrial cycles, without being “downcycled” into low-grade uses (as most “recyclables” now are).

Elaborating their principles from experience (re)designing everything from carpeting to corporate campuses, William McDonough and Michael Braungart make an exciting and viable case for change.

Paper or plastic? Neither, say William McDonough and Michael Braungart. Why settle for the least harmful alternative when we could have something that is better–say, edible grocery bags! In Cradle to Cradle, the authors present a manifesto calling for a new industrial revolution, one that would render both traditional manufacturing and traditional environmentalism obsolete. Recycling, for instance, is in reality “downcycling,” creating hybrids of biological and technical “nutrients” which are then unrecoverable and unusable. The authors, an architect and a chemist, need to eliminate the concept of waste altogether, at the same time as preserving commerce and bearing in mind human nature. They offer several compelling examples of corporations that aren’t just doing less harm–they’re in reality doing some good for the environment and their neighborhoods, and making more money in the process. Cradle to Cradle is a refreshing change from the intractable environmental conflicts that dominate headlines. It’s a handbook for 21st-century innovation and must be required reading for business hotshots and environmental activists. –Therese Littleton

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