Cradle to Cradle

The vision that William McDonough and Michael Braungart speak of in Cradle to Cradle is a very hopeful and optimistic one; however, I think it is also a very functional idea. For example, their idea of roof top gardens on buildings in cities would not be that difficult to implement, and the benefits (better building insulation, cooler cities, more plant life to absorb carbon dioxide) are numerous and needed. I like how they approach the problem differently by not trying to fix a flawed system but rather create a new one that accomplishes the goals of the flawed system without the bad side effects. It is sometimes easier to start from the beginning than to try to fix something with some many issues.

One of their proposed ideas that I did not quite understand was the concept of completely reusable products. They believe products can be desgined so that they can be used and then recycled completely, with the end product being just as good as or better than the original. While this is very easily implemented for some products, such as books which can be made out of plastic instead of paper, many products do not have available, more eco-friendly substitutes. In the beginning of the book, they talked about computers, all the different parts and metals that go into them, and how it is very difficult, if not impossible, to recycle a computer; however, they proposed no such way of making a recyclable computer. Also, in regards to plastic books, most conventional pens do not write well on plastic, so it would be very difficult to take notes in a plastic book. They idea of completely recyclable products is impressive, but the implementation could be impossible.