Cradle to Cradle
Remaking the Way We Make Things
William MacDonough & Michael Braungart
Also: Waste Is Food / Waste Equals Food (Video/DVD)
<Rating: 5 stars>In nature, waste is food, or to put it more accurately, there is no waste.
Everything that is discarded by one plant, animal or system is used by another. This is part of the interconnected web of life. Lets not forget that we are part of the web.
The world is not an endless resource nor is it an endless waste dump, but that is how manufacturing has operated since the industrial revolution of the 19th century. Even current recycling programs do not go far enough as the materials are often contaminated with toxic chemicals and can only reused once before being sent to land fill.
This is should be called 'downcycling' as it is not true recycling.
Cradle to Cradle illustrates how manufacturing processes can be changed to eliminate the waste of resources and the toxic chemicals added to products that end up in our homes, environment and inevitably our air, food and water.
All goods could be made of fully recoverable technical nutrients or biological nutrients. The authors give several landmark cases demonstrating how this can be done and continue to follow this principle through their architecture and chemistry businesses.
This is a waterproof durabook. It is not made of paper but a reusable plastic which is prototype for a future book-recycling program.
more... www.mcdonough.com
more... www.mbdc.com
more... www.centerforsustainability.org
more... durabooks
Updated Feb 2008