Wasting Away

Recycling as we know it is stupid, or so say architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart in Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (North Point Press; 208 pages). The environmentalist mantra of reduce, reuse and recycle is based on the singularly flawed idea, according to the authors, that all things must pass into waste. Even if you turn that pop bottle into a fleece jacket—by applying brute force and chemical processing—that seemingly useful incarnation is just an additional step between raw material and landfill. "If humans are truly going to prosper, we will have to learn to imitate nature's highly effective cradle-to-cradle system of nutrient flow and metabolism, in which the very concept of 'waste' does not exist," they write. In other words, things shouldn't be made in the first place if they will ultimately become useless junk. Instead of ending up in a pit, they should become a cradle—fodder or springboard—for some new creation.

That sounds like the rant of utopian cranks, but both authors are respected even in the boardroom. McDonough is lead architect on a $2 billion project to rejuvenate Ford's massive River Rouge plant; Braungart helped found Germany's Green Party. Rather than flog humans for being wasteful beasts, they celebrate our propensity to consume, insisting there are ways to make that impulse a healthy part of a dynamic ecosystem. In Cradle to Cradle, the authors question why shampoo bottles, yogurt containers, and candy wrappers aren't made of biodegradable material. Why can't trainers be designed to eventually fertilize your tomatoes—or be reassembled into a new pair of shoes? The cynical response is that increased costs and our hardwired fashion instinct will prevent us wearing the same shoes too long, but the authors lead by example: Cradle to Cradle is printed with non-toxic ink on material made from waterproof resins. When you run out of shelf space, you can feed it to the flowers.