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Cradle to Cradle
There's been a lot going on for me internally, lots of processing and re-evaluating, coinciding with a recent birthday. It is, though, perhaps better expressed in person; I'm not sure I can even write about it. Meanwhile, I've still got a couple of posts grumbling at me about being unwritten. So, here's a book that really made me sit up and take notice, a couple of months ago.
William McDonough and Michael Braungart come from very eclectic, varied backgrounds. This explains in part how broad in scope their observations and ideas are. The basic underlying premise of their book, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, is that we are going to have to think much farther out of the box, much further into the future, than we currently are, to solve our environmental problems long term.
It is not a scolding book, nor a gloomy one, but an optomistic and creative one; still, it does paint a rather terrifying picture of how dangerous an environment we are currently creating for ourselves. To quote an early paragraph, "That plastic rattle the baby is playing with - should she be putting it in her mouth? If it's made of PVC plastic, there's a good chance it contains phthalates, known to cause liver cancer in animals (and suspected to cause endocrine disruption), along with toxic dyes, lubricants, antioxidants, and ultraviolent-light stabilizers. Why? What were the designers at the toy company thinking?" Well, obviously this question hit me rather hard; and, frankly, it got across to me things that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
starphire had been trying to communicate all along, that one cannot assume that things made for children are safe for them.
So do we not give the child a toy? Do we not make the toy? No, says Cradle to Cradle, we make the toy out of materials that are safe for the child to interact with.
But what about the fact that it's still trash, after it gets broken or outmoded or whatever? It's nice if I got it as a hand-me-down, and if I can pass it along the line afterwards, but eventually it's going to end up in a landfill - or, worse, burned, which will release toxic chemicals into the air. The toy was never designed to be anything more than a single-life item. It needs to be designed to be fully recyclable: not as an afterthought, not "downcycled" into a subsequent single-use item (of lower-quality material), but as a material that can be safely and efficiently used and re-used and re-re-used.
And what of the process by which the toy is made? One of the most shocking facts for me to absorb in here, of many shocking facts, was that the toy only represents about five percent of the materials used and discarded, in its making. I am unconsciously throwing away twenty times as much as I directly use, which is a phenomenal amount of waste. The process needs to be re-envisioned, the book contends. We need to copy nature's processes, wherein waste equals food.
It all gets more complicated from there, and I can imagine rereading this book (which, slow and picky reader that I am, I very rarely do) to better imprint the ideas on me. If you'd like to borrow it in the meantime, speak up. It will hold up to many readings: it's not actually made of paper, is waterproof, and is the only book I have unhesitatingly let Sylvana play with.
William McDonough and Michael Braungart come from very eclectic, varied backgrounds. This explains in part how broad in scope their observations and ideas are. The basic underlying premise of their book, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, is that we are going to have to think much farther out of the box, much further into the future, than we currently are, to solve our environmental problems long term.
It is not a scolding book, nor a gloomy one, but an optomistic and creative one; still, it does paint a rather terrifying picture of how dangerous an environment we are currently creating for ourselves. To quote an early paragraph, "That plastic rattle the baby is playing with - should she be putting it in her mouth? If it's made of PVC plastic, there's a good chance it contains phthalates, known to cause liver cancer in animals (and suspected to cause endocrine disruption), along with toxic dyes, lubricants, antioxidants, and ultraviolent-light stabilizers. Why? What were the designers at the toy company thinking?" Well, obviously this question hit me rather hard; and, frankly, it got across to me things that
starphire had been trying to communicate all along, that one cannot assume that things made for children are safe for them. So do we not give the child a toy? Do we not make the toy? No, says Cradle to Cradle, we make the toy out of materials that are safe for the child to interact with.
But what about the fact that it's still trash, after it gets broken or outmoded or whatever? It's nice if I got it as a hand-me-down, and if I can pass it along the line afterwards, but eventually it's going to end up in a landfill - or, worse, burned, which will release toxic chemicals into the air. The toy was never designed to be anything more than a single-life item. It needs to be designed to be fully recyclable: not as an afterthought, not "downcycled" into a subsequent single-use item (of lower-quality material), but as a material that can be safely and efficiently used and re-used and re-re-used.
And what of the process by which the toy is made? One of the most shocking facts for me to absorb in here, of many shocking facts, was that the toy only represents about five percent of the materials used and discarded, in its making. I am unconsciously throwing away twenty times as much as I directly use, which is a phenomenal amount of waste. The process needs to be re-envisioned, the book contends. We need to copy nature's processes, wherein waste equals food.
It all gets more complicated from there, and I can imagine rereading this book (which, slow and picky reader that I am, I very rarely do) to better imprint the ideas on me. If you'd like to borrow it in the meantime, speak up. It will hold up to many readings: it's not actually made of paper, is waterproof, and is the only book I have unhesitatingly let Sylvana play with.
no subject
The authors don't disagree with you; and if you think the book is about guilting us into fixing things, then 1) you didn't read what I wrote, and 2) you must think I enjoy wallowing in my own liberally bleeding heart or something. The book is about building a sustainable future, which includes economic stability.
Yes, making things leads to waste. The whole point of the book is that the most economically efficient way of producing things is to design them so that the waste from the process becomes raw material - "technical nutrients" - for something else.
no subject
Of course, by responding I feel a need to assert something and not simply letting you have the last word in your own blog. That makes me feel petty. I guess I'm still waiting for a reason to give a fuck about stuff when I can't understand normal people anyway.
No really, I frickin' don't. My mother once had to explain to me (this was around the age of four or five) that another child was being shy. I then asked at the top of my lungs "what's shy?" I still don't get shy people. I understand simple people now, but that's because I've been a salesperson. You find the one thing a simple person gets, pitch to that and pocket the commission.
My roomie says I'm a sociopath like he is. I have a strong moral compass but I'm using a different pole than north or Mecca. Sometimes I think I'm supposed to assert or explain when really I'm just supposed to nod in agreement until the topic passes.
I dumpster dive. If you want to learn what else can be the away in "thrown away", get stuff you find on the street. In a city like Boston, there is so much non-broken or lightly broken stuff that often barely needs a rinsing. My girlfriend even dives for food but I'm strictly in the dry-goods dumpster scene.
Sorry.
no subject
But the concept of the only thing that changes things is money is quite the limiting one, doncha' think? The level of cynicism that it leverages against things both good and bad (religions, 60s, charity work, government) is considerable. Plus it builds a prison of capitalist thinking--we should try to figure out if there are ways to move beyond that.
no subject
And dude, I can't understand normal people either, why do you think I started having a real conversation with you in the Iron Horse line, all those years ago? But I don't think that inability-to-get-the-normals absolves me from caring about what happens to, y'know, the ecology of everything. It makes me insanely frustrated that most people don't seem to care about how badly we're collectively fucking up, but that's about caring more, not less.