Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

Rating:
Summary: Change your way of thinking about progress
Review: "Cradle to Crade" is a fabulous book. Regardless of whether you agree with the authors' views, you will find excellent arguments, good research, and clear explanations from philosophical, historical, scientific, and business perspectives.

The upshot of the book is that humanity's whole philosophy of designing technology is destructive to the planet. What we need to do is realize that since the Earth is a closed system, we need to use industrial processes that both avoid toxifying the environment and produce finished products whose raw materials can be endlessly reused. We're not talking convential recycling programs, where various kinds of plastic get melted together to produce a big mass of low-quality material. The authors provide several examples of products that meet their conditions. They're well-equipped to do so, since for a decade they've run a design firm that helps companies do exactly what they preach.

There's more to this book than just a "2nd industrial revolution". When the authors apply the same basic ideas to urban planning, economic "efficiency", or health issues, it really gives us some great points to ponder. Hopefully some of us will even be inspired to action. It's really a very important book.

Rating:
Summary: Change your way of thinking about progress
Review: "Cradle to Crade" is a fabulous book. Regardless of whether you agree with the authors' views, you will find excellent arguments, good research, and clear explanations from philosophical, historical, scientific, and business perspectives.

The upshot of the book is that humanity's whole philosophy of designing technology is destructive to the planet. What we need to do is realize that since the Earth is a closed system, we need to use industrial processes that both avoid toxifying the environment and produce finished products whose raw materials can be endlessly reused. We're not talking convential recycling programs, where various kinds of plastic get melted together to produce a big mass of low-quality material. The authors provide several examples of products that meet their conditions. They're well-equipped to do so, since for a decade they've run a design firm that helps companies do exactly what they preach.

There's more to this book than just a "2nd industrial revolution". When the authors apply the same basic ideas to urban planning, economic "efficiency", or health issues, it really gives us some great points to ponder. Hopefully some of us will even be inspired to action. It's really a very important book.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing New
Review: A tremendous disappointment. The first half of the book recites the same old litany of distortions and half-truths popular with extreme environmentalists. The second half offers promises but disappoints. Don't look here for new ideas that will help with balancing economic growth and the environment. The few ideas are not new. The few examples, though individually good, are surrogates for supporting the environmental agenda of the authors. The authors extol the ant for living an environmentally productive life: Humans, on the other hand, destroy. The authors fail to mention that ants never wrote the Iliad, painted the Sistine Chapel, or composed La Traviata.

Rating:
Summary: "Less" is sinister
Review: After hearing some references to the book, one being it's relation to Ford's Model U concept vehicle, I was curious to read it. The philosophy laid out in these pages (which take only about 4hrs to read) is, like others have said, refreshing and inspiring. The one flaw is in their foundational beliefs, which claim the amazing design of nature was itself not designed - the logic points otherwise. But, even wrong starting points can reach truth. Instead of the typical boycott reflex of environmentalists, corporations which adher to these principles would inspire extreme loyalty. (e.g. If Ford follows through with an eco-effective vehicle design, I would have much impetus to purchase their vehicle.)
I highly recommend the book, it'll speak for itself.

Rating:
Summary: "Less" is sinister
Review: After hearing some references to the book, one being it's relation to Ford's Model U concept vehicle, I was curious to read it. The philosophy laid out in these pages (which take only about 4hrs to read) is, like others have said, refreshing and inspiring. The one flaw is in their foundational beliefs, which claim the amazing design of nature was itself not designed - the logic points otherwise. But, even wrong starting points can reach truth. Instead of the typical boycott reflex of environmentalists, corporations which adher to these principles would inspire extreme loyalty. (e.g. If Ford follows through with an eco-effective vehicle design, I would have much impetus to purchase their vehicle.)
I highly recommend the book, it'll speak for itself.

Rating:
Summary: Quite possibly, a landmark book
Review: All I can say in response to the negative review written on here is the following:
I believe I can fairly say that the great individuals, such as Michelangelo, who are responsible for our most beautiful creations--these artists having derived all their work from Nature and having the greatest respect for nature--would wholeheartedly support the ideas set forth in this book.

This is a fascinating and brilliant book that could change the way we live.

Rating:
Summary: People and their stuff CAN co-exist
Review: At 1-1/4 lbs, "Cradle to Cradle" is more than twice as heavy as a same-size paperback edition of John Steinbeck's "The Winter of Our Discontent" and the fact is more than incidental.

"Remaking the Way We Make Things", the book's subtitle, is the social agenda of its authors, architect Bill McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart. They take issue with the three R's of environmentalism, "reduce, reuse and recycle." The process by which plastic bottles are recycled into carpet, for example, also produces considerable waste and the carpet itself "is still on its way to a landfill; it's just stopping off in your house en route."

The authors advocate designing products so that after their useful lives, either the product components provide biological nutrients for new products or circulate in a closed industrial loop.

The Yanomamo of Brazil whose banana soup dish may contain the ashes of their dearly departed was one source of inspiration for Braungart and McDonough was moved by the simple, natural and effective technology of the Bedouin whose goat hair tents ventilate hot air up and out and, when it rains, swell with absorbed moisture and provide protection.

The authors are walking the talk with the physical design of this new book. It is made of a waterproof polymer developed by Melcher Media so it can be read in the bath or at the beach, provided you have sufficient wrist strength to hoist it to viewing level. And the book can be "upcycled", made into a high quality polymer, at least theoretically. Until such time, place this book on the shelf above your hot tub next to Aqua Erotica, a collection of stories dealing with water and sex, another book of "Durabook" construction.

Undoubtedly, an electronic edition of the book would be most eco-effective. Also, a digital version would be searchable and might compensate for lack of an index. Despite its flaws as a model, it offers a vision of the future in which people and their stuff can co-exist.

Rating:
Summary: You will be able to eat your furniture!!!
Review: Cradle to Cradle....
A pretty gosh dang good book about the future of industry and how to re-design it in an environmentally friendly/helpful way...without hindering production or consumption.

Imagine if you will, being able to drink the exhaust from your fuel cell/hybrid car while snacking on your T-shirt made of bio-degradable and digestible goods and tossing out decomposable packaging from your car window that birds, dogs, micro-organsims, and vermon can healthily eat and thrive upon. And, ahh, returning to your energy producing (yes, producing) home with a roof made of topsoil covered with birds, insects, and other fauna and flora native to that specific environment, all singing and playing in your urban sprawl "garden" house. Is it an environmetnalist's Utopia? No, it's a "Cradle to Cradle" system that spurns and enhances future generations lives (both biological and technical goods) rather than limit and hinder them.

How can this be done, and is it possible? Of course, and it's quite simple. Basically it's death to recycling ("down-cycling") and the birthing of "up-cycling", or possessing goods that when their use is up, you can either cycle it for a completely new, environmentally helpful one with no waste or by-products, or eat it! The book is even made of up-cyclable polymers (i have no idea what polymers are, but the book feels like smooth plastic) so that when you finish it, you can return it somewhere, have it melted, and created into a totally new book, or a bowl for salsa.

Most human beings are pretty aware of our present condition on earth; pretty deplorable with holes in the atmosphere, species on the brink of extinction, and tons of trash with no where to put it. Of course we are responsible and the guilt lies directly on our shoulders. The authors provide a lot of shocking information i was unaware of about how our materialistic ways are killing us in slow, tiny incremental parts because of our consumption/production of "Cradle to Grave" goods. But, creative, innovative, environmentally helpful, Cradle to Cradle goods aren't harmful, and in fact can be helpful to your surroundings. Say bye to the guilt becuase you will (hopefully) be able to buy or consume similar things, but without the negative spill-overs when you use and finish using them.

Mr. Mcdonough and Mr. Braungarts' thesis makes sense, it's not an impossible feat to achieve, and it should be implemented and put into action by next tuesday. Of course, there are a lot of hurdles to jump to get there, but it's a nice, creative breath of fresh air from the current system and ideas in place. Plus, how cool would it be to eat your telephone or some shoelaces? What a great public service and awareness they have created with this book!

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Summary: Every student of design should read this book
Review: I am a graduate student in a school of architecture that talks alot about doing 'sustainable design' and the 'green' architecture that has become a fad of late. This book makes the designer think not about efficiently designing buildings, but efficiently designing MATERIALS to eliminate the dangers that are inherent to the chemistry of almost every modern building product. It was an eye-opening read for me and has changed the way i think about 'sustainable design' and what the true goal of 'green' architecture should be.

Rating:
Summary: A Truly New Kind of Book
Review: I can't think of another book that so obviously practices what it preaches as _Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things_ (North Point Press) by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. Books are usually printed on a fairly high grade of paper (compared to, say, that used in newspapers), paper which everyone knows comes from cutting down pretty and naturally useful trees. The paper is printed with inks that have heavy metals and other chemicals in them. You can recycle a book, but those chemicals get to be part of the mess, and are expensive to remove. Anyway, you don't really recycle it, you _down_cycle it (the authors' term), because the paper in it can only be bleached and chemically treated to turn it into a lower grade of paper, such as for newspapers. And newspapers can be turned into toilet paper, in further downcycling. _Cradle to Cradle_ is about breaking out of such "cycles" and into real cycles. It has smooth, bright white pages that are heavy, like the paper in the best books. They are not, however, paper in the usual sense, although you probably wouldn't notice the difference unless your attention was called to it. They are made of plastic resins and inorganic fillers. Although the pages are designed to last as long as any paper book, these pages can be recycled by conventional means to make more paper of equal quality. They might even be _up_cycled into resins of greater complexity and utility. The ink on them can be easily removed by a safe solvent bath, or washing with extremely hot water, and does not contain dangerous chemicals.

The authors, one an architect and one a chemist, created McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry in 1995, to consult with companies about designing sustaining products and factories. They have the ear of such companies as Ford and Nike, and their book is a primer on how they would like to see manufacturing work in the future to take part in natural cycles having little effect on the overall ecology of the earth. It is a rather thrilling little manifesto, by two obviously bright guys who don't let their optimism get in the way of bringing in real results. The idea is for products and processes not to be "less bad," but like ants or trees, to be positively good for the environment. "Waste is food" is the principle. Making products that can be composted, or can be used again without degrading them or the environment can be done, and it is no dream. Much of the book shows how the authors, as consultants, have put such principles into action.

It can be done. The words of the authors, clearly concerned about the future of the planet, are enthusiastic and convincing, and given the examples in this surprising book, it is clear that we will be seeing more design of products and processes that are incorporated into natural cycles. Given the example of the book itself, a good looking product on its own, the advantages are clear. And if that isn't enough, the book can be read without risk in the bathtub, as it is entirely waterproof.