Tree huggers are good at highlighting the disastrous impact of industrialization on the environment. Technocrats, on the other hand, find conservation advocates to be blind to the social and economic justifications for industrialization. They maintain that if every environmental protection advice is observed thoroughly, it will set us back for decades, technologically and economically. Both groups view industrial waste and the products that we create, as destructive to the environment. The choice is between unchecked industrialization and restrictive environmentalism.
Is there another choice? As a matter of fact, there is a third alternative. Cradle to cradle recycling.
Have you heard of the book called “Cradle to Cradle: Remaking The Way We Make Things” by William McDonough and Michael Braungart, published in 2002? In this ground-breaking book, the authors explain that recycling, as it is done today, is in reality “downcycling” or “cradle to grave” recycling. We make floating buoys from styrofoam or produce news print out of white paper. The new products we fashion out of recycled materials are invariably lesser in quality to the original (due to materials degradation or contamination) or utilize very little of it (the remainder deposited in the landfills as dangerous waste).
Contrast this with how nature disposes of its excess. When a tree brings forth a thousand blooms to reproduce or replicate itself, it is probable that only one of those seeds will actually become a new tree. But, we don’t find the 999 other flowers wasted since all these fall down to the earth as nutrients to help begin the tree’s next reproduction cycle.
In nature, there is no such thing as waste. Waste is synonymous to food, everything goes back to the earth as sustenance. This is known as sustainability, every part contributes to “sustain” the cycle and the process is repeated unendingly without any unusable excess.
What if we can adopt nature’s way of sustainability and zero waste in our industrial production processes? What if every gizmo that we produce can be reutilized, recycled, or completely biodegraded to its organic components?
Cradle to cradle is the way to change “the way we make things” to mirror exactly the seamless process of sustainability in nature. How? Think of incorporating sustainability into every product. Engineers, architects, and designers will have to provide for end-of-life product handling while the product is still in the conceptualization stage. Is the gadget reusable? Are all components recyclable? Are the parts, paints, and coatings biodegradable?
A lady who goes shopping chooses between plastic bags or paper bags for her groceries. A town council in Germany considers if their town should keep burning coal or switch to palm oil for electricity generation. In our daily lives, we invariably fall into “lesser of two evils” kind of choices. Plastic will remain for thousands of years and coal is the dirtiest of all the fuels we use. Conversely, paper production kills trees, and palm oil production threatens extinction to rare primates.
Lesser evils. Since the start of the industrial revolution, we’ve been boxed into this appearance of limited options. Cradle-to-cradle recycling challenges this mirage of limited choices.
When sustainability is crucial and added in the very design of the product, the options become limitless for us. The authors see cradle to cradle recycling as the “next industrial revolution” and this “thinking outside of the box” may just be the alternative we all need to address the world’s waste problems. Paper bag or plastic bag? Why not an “edible bag?”
Michael Arms contributes articles to the Pacebutler Recycling and Environmental blog and maintains several Squidoo lenses on recycling and the environment. Pacebutler Corporation is one of several US trading companies which buy used cell phones directly from US cell phone users. You can also donate cell phones to your preferred charity or non-profit through Pacebutler.
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