Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

in this book are how we should all live our lives, however, the author writes in the same way he speaks: on random, never-ending tangents. The sentences are so run-on that he is hard to follow and sometimes misses the point. Everyone should read the book for its ideas and principles, but beware the confusion and frustration that comes with reading a poorly written book. This book would otherwise easily have 5 stars. The "paperback" version is actually plastic, hence, "this book is not a tree."

This book is a great read for anyone interested in environmental science; from those completely new to the topic to those familiar with the issues of environmental design. This book is a collaboration of an architect, McDonough, and a chemist, Braungart, both trying to do their best for the environment within their field of study. This book presents a new perspective on recycling and what it actually is (“downcycling”), and creates a solution to combine business and the environment, two completely opposite fields, to produce better results for both. 2009-2010 Environmental Science Student: This book is great for anyone who is interested in the environment. One of the authors, William McDonough is an architect, so he focuses on constructing buildings that are “eco-friendly.” The other author, Michael Braungart, is a chemist who focuses on making materials more biodegradable. The authors give readers examples of how their everyday actions affect the planet around them. The authors try to provide valid questions that readers can ask themselves everyday to try and help out the environment. For example, one of the questions was “Where does the trash go after it gets picked up?” This is a question that makes readers think because everyone has trash. They provide eye-opening information that makes people think before they act because in the end it will help the environment in some way, shape, or form. The authors also didn’t push readers into a new mindset. The novel didn’t tell people what to do or that they were acting in a way that was hurting the environment. It simply provided suggestions to better their lives and the life of the planet. This book is also really neat because it doesn’t feel like an actual book. It is made out of water-proof paper that can be later recycled into another book down the line.

Most everything in the world could be spoken of in design terms. We design our cloths, our food, our lives, and our environments. Humans and nature are also a product of design, a design process which evolved out of survival and growth, but also symbiosis. Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough & Michael Braungart asks us to rethink the way we design in favor of the way nature designs. The premise for the entire book is that we designed our society on a cradle to grave type of production system. Cradle-to-grave is a one way linear means of production that assumes waste. It was an effective form of life-cycle management for industry. In our current methods the waste is put “away”, but since earth is a closed system it doesn’t really go away; which is why we need to rethink waste and develop a system where there is none. “We are accustomed to thinking of industry and the environment as being at odds with each other…” (p. 6). This conflict propels the ideology that we must sacrifice, share resources, or go without because we face a world of limits. They suggest the utopian idea of having unlimited resources if we assume a “Cradle to Cradle” system of production. Their thesis is that if we properly designed products that contribute to the environment rather than destroying it we could achieve this. Their solution is that we begin moving towards a new industrial revolution. But recycling is not enough because most recycling that occurs is what they call downcycling, meaning that the product was never designed to be reused that way and the end product is a lower form. They instead propose up-cycling where the product is used for a similar or better form. The book is evidence of this, the pages are not paper but some type of polymer that can be fully upcycled rather than downcycled. Also, the ink of the pages can be washed off and captured without harsh chemical processes. They proceed to present us with their version of the history of the industrial revolution. One effective method of communicating their observations is rephrasing the design strategy behind the industrial revolution. They ask the designer of the industrial revolution to design a system that “results in gigantic amounts of waste…requires thousands of complex regulations - not to keep people and natural systems safe, but rather to keep them from being poisoned too quickly” (p.18) This sarcasm clearly illustrates the results of the industrial revolution although no single person or even country was a designer of it. One of the underlying ideologies of human kind is that of taming the wild and doing it through brute force. The book suggests that it began to be a problem in the industrial revolution. It might be more accurate to suggest it started at the dawn of civilization which coincides with settlement and agriculture rather than in the 19th century. By planting crops we clearly are attempting to tame the wild. As a human race we are not exceptional at reaching consensus, hence democracy or wars which seem dysfunctional at the best of times. Since decisions are seldom made by one person it would be effective to include some type of communication tool or method with the book besides a simple goal setting process. The book reviews several key authors that wrote on population and growth. Thomas Malthus, Rachel Carson, Paul Ehrlich, and the Club of Rome all contributed to our attitude towards growth today. These authors were among the first to critically examine the environmental effects of our current system of growth so it’s fitting that they discuss them. It seems that the authors really dislike “eco-efficiency” which came from the Rio Earth Summit of 1992. This is the conference that the three R’s came out of, reduce, reuse and recycle. They dislike them because they only help us and industry be “less bad” to the environment. A simple analogy is that if you want to get to Mexico but are driving to Canada, driving slower will not help. Meaning that doing “less bad” is still not good. Eco