Cradle to Cradle.

This green book is all about "remaking the way we make things." It gives us a different perspective of recycling as opposed to upcycling - if a product does actually become more useful or harmful when it is recycled, or if upcylcing or developing a better product than that which it came from is more effective.

When we create and develop products we must be concerned of its evolution. What happens to a product once the user decides to dispose of it - does it just rot in our environment or does it help sustain our environment? This is where the question of Cradle to Grave or Cradle to Cradle becomes significant. Why not make things that once the user is done utilizing it, they can be thrown on the ground and thus sustain every living organism around it - just like nature. The book compares this relationship to a cherry blossom tree, whose "litter" sustains the soil around it, or a colony of ants - how their way of living is so sustainable that what they take from nature they give back to support the ecosystem. I mean you don't see them having a dumpsite beside every anthill right? Lol. I now have high respect for these creatures. This is apparently how nature works, and unfortunately not how man does.

The book further talks about sustainable design (like a grass roof - and no, not our nipa huts that use dried grass) and how being "less bad' just won't cut it. Here are several quotes to ponder on from the book of William McDonough and Michael Braungart:

Stop being so bad, so materialistic, so greedy. Do whatever you can, no matter how inconvenient, to limit your "consumption." Buy less, spend less, drive less, have fewer children - or none. Aren't the major environmental problems today - global warming, deforestation, pollution, waste - products of your decadent Western way of life?

Many products are designed with "built-in obsolescence," to last only for a certain period of time, to allow - to encourage - the customer to get rid of the thing and buy a new model. (Exactly like the iPod and the MacBooks...)

See the hollowness and fundamental unsatisfactoriness of a life devoted primarily to the pursuit of material ends. (Fritz Schumacher)

Recycling is an aspirin, alleviating a rather large collective hangover... overconsumption. The best way to reduce any environmental impact is not to recycle anymore, but to produce and dispose of less. (Robert Lilienfeld and William Rathje)

You must get the most out of the power, out of the material, and out of the time. (Henry Ford)

Most recycling is actually downcycling; it reduces the quality of a material over time. When plastics other than those found in soda and water bottles are recycled, they are mixed with different plastics to produce a hybrid of lower quality, which is then molded into something amorphous and cheap, such as a park bench or a speed bump. (Why don't we find ways to upcycle instead - remake items with higher quality and usefulness.)

(The pages of this book is actually made of polymers that are infinitely recyclable at the same level of quality, and not made of paper. The inks used as well are nontoxic. A good example of Cradle to Cradle design.) Books become books become books over and over again, each incarnation a sparkling new vehicle for fresh images and ideas. Form follows not just function but the evolution of the medium itself, in the endlessly propagating spirit of the printer world.

Our concept of eco-effectiveness means working on the right things - on the right products and services and systems - instead of making the wrong things less bad (eco-efficiency). The marvelous thing about effective systems is that one wants more of them, not less. (Like a vehicle that emits less pollution vs. a vehicle that does not emit any pollution at all.)

We have been working with a kind of roofing that responds to all of these issues, including the economic ones. It is a light layer of soil, a growing matrix, covered with plants. It maintains the roof at a stable temperature, providing free evaporative cooling in hot weather and insulation in cold weather, and shields it from the sun's destructive rays, making it last longer. In addition, it makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, captures particulates like soot, and absorbs storm water. And that's not all: it looks far more attractive than naked asphalt and, with the storm-water management, saves money that would be lost to regulatory fees and flood damage. In appropriate locales, it can even be engineered to produce solar-generated electricity. If this sounds like a novel idea, it's not. It is based on centuries-old building techniques. In Iceland, for example, many old farms were built wit stones, wood, and sod, and grass for roofs. And it is widely used in Europe, where tens of millions of square feet of such roofing already exist.

There is some talk in science and popular culture about colonizing other planets, such as Mars or the moon. The idea also provides rationalization for destruction, an expression of our hope that we'll find a way to save ourselves if we trash our planet. Let's not make a big mess here and go somewhere less hospitable even if we figure out how. Let's use our ingenuity to stay here; to become, once again, native to this planet.

Design buildings that, like trees, produce more energy than they consume and purify their own waste water. Design factories that produce effluents that are drinking water. Design products that, when their useful life is over, do not become useless waste but can be tossed onto the ground to decompose and become food for plants and animals and nutrients for soil; or, alternately, that can return to industrial cycles to supply high-quality raw materials for new products. Design a world of abundance, not one of limits, pollution, and waste.

Five steps to eco-effectiveness:
Get "free of" known culprits. The detergent may be "free of" phosphates, but have they been replaced by something worse?
Follow informed personal preferences: prefer ecological intelligence, prefer respect, prefer delight, celebration, and fun.
Create a "passive positive" list. What, if any, are their problematic or potentially problematic characteristics? Are they toxic? Carcinogenic? How is the product used, and what is its end state? What are the effects and possible effects on the local and global communities?
Activate the positive list. Stop trying to be less bad and start figuring out how to be good. Now you set out with eco-effective principles, so that the product is designed from beginning to end to become food for either biological or technical metabolisms. (No more substituting harmful ingredients to less harmful ones).
Reinvent. Recast the design assignment: not "design a car" but "design a "nutrivehicle." Don't just reinvent the recipe, rethink the menu.

Signal your intention. Commit to a new paradigm, rather than to an incremental improvement of the old. Restore. Strive for "good growth," not just economic growth. Be read to innovate further. Understand and prepare for the learning curve. And exert intergenerational responsibility.

How can we support and perpetuate the rights of all living things to share in a world of abundance? How can we love the children of all species - not just our own - for all time? Imagine what a world of prosperity and health in the future will look like, and begin designing for it right now. What would it mean to become, once again, native to this place, the Earth - the home of all our relations? This is going to take us all, and it is going to take forever. But then, that's the point.