Cradle to Grave

The first time I saw this book, Cradle to Cradle, was over the summer at a lobbying firm I was interning at. The President had been passing it around to his EVPs and was seemingly fanatical about it-- I read the back cover and flipped through the recycled/recyclable plastic-y pages then blew it off as a really heavy, waterproof enviro-book. Honestly, it seemed pretty self explanatory: we're wasteful and the way we make things needs to change if we're going to lessen environmental harm. Needless to say, I wasn't thrilled when I saw it on our reading list. However, my sentiment has since changed after reading the text and hearing the stories of William and Michael. Not only does this book offer hope for the future of environmental movements and collaboration, but it nicely synthesizes the information about how and why we can/should shift from a cradle to grave into cradle to cradle model. "Remaking the way we make things" is indeed, self explanatory but the meaning is definitely deeper than I originally felt it was after briefly reviewing the book a few months ago.

Some main premises I thought were on point include the umbrella concept of cradle to grave transforming to cradle to cradle because, as the authors make clear, the products that we produce and "consume" are usually toxic to the environment and have built in obsolescence. Additionally, most products only contain about 5% of the raw material used to create/transport them. This thought of obsolescence and wastefulness reminded me of Annie's "story of stuff" and her example of the little green radio that was so cheap and constructed "cheaply" just so she'd have to buy a new model when it died (or went out of style, which is a different yet related issue). Another point I appreciated was the motto designated to the Industrial Revolution that is applicable to our current path of cradle to grave production: "if brute force doesn't work, you're not using enough of it" -- this slogan paired with the assumption that environment is the enemy are clear barriers to overcome in achieving a cradle to cradle model. Finally, since cradle to grave designs dominate modern manufacturing, "durable" goods become waste almost immediately; so in a sense, we aren't actually consumers, but rather the grim reapers of product.