Waste is food
9 09 2007I just watched online “Tegenlicht”, a dutch TV program that investigates social, economic, political issues around the globe. Very good program. This one was titled “Waste is food”, as the team investigated the new emerging approach to handling human produced waste. The issue is raising more and more awareness simply based on the fact that we have a (huge) problem if we don’t search for new solutions.
Recently I also came across one simple sentence in a book I was reading that made me realise what many are realising. And that sentence was “Nature doesn’t produce any waste”. Indeed. Everything in nature simply gets transformed, moving from one state to another. We’ve been focusing in the past decades on recycling. But what nature does is more than recycling, it is a global cycle. And based on the fact that, through the waste we produce - and usually don’t want to see - we’re not only polluting and destroying the environment but are also slowly poisoning ourselves. Slowly the whole ecosystem is degrading; how could we then possibly avoid our own degradation?
The program team interviewed among others William McDonough, a revolutionary architect. McDonough thinks and designs buildings that produce more energy than they consume, are totally integrated in the environment, help clean rain water, or purify the air, acting as a tree does, as a living entity. This new approach they name “cradle to cradle”, based on the idea that “sustainable” is level 0, and that this system is not only eco-friendly, it actually acts as a catalyst by creating more resources, more clean air, water, plants, thus not only protecting the environment but actually being fully integrated within it, and actively participating in the cycles of nature.
Next to this, Nike are developing new kinds of shoes, using mainly raw materials, and no glues: they focused on geometry to get the verious components of the shoe to perfectly fit one into another, and some thread for the finishing line; so as when recycling the shoe, all parts can easily be seperated from one another and reused into making new models.
Ford, the car manufacturer, has also redesigned their automobile park with the help of McDonough, and affirm that not only has it become eco-friendly, but saves them millions of dollars in the process.
One can only marvel at those developments. I personally strongly believe this is the future. I don’t think we have much alternative anyway. Next step is to see all companies follow this lead. Creating fully biodegradable products, and even better, products that generate life and development. No waste, no pollution, no degradation; isn’t that something to truly wish for? And may I add, this old idea that the future is modern and high-tech, and that high-tech is made of metal and plastics and all, is gradually being replaced, as we finally understand, with that that high-tech actually means brilliantly thought and designed products using raw materials; since the utterly high-tech system is nature itself! So, if we can use our brains and hearts and creativity, and create products that generate more resources through their own waste, then, wow, we won’t need to worry about doomsday anymore. Utopia? Or rather new awareness/realization?
Links:
Tegenlicht (note: for those of you living in the Netherlands, you can watch Tegenlicht in the “uitzending gemist” area of the omroep webpage):
William McDonough:
Nike:
Ford:
wauw, what beautiful examples that give hope for the future, beautiful thoughts!
didn’t know about them!
thanx & grtzzz
For those who are interested I keep a list of publications, interviews, news, events, milestones and other sources on the Cradle to Cradle subject.
See: http://iobserve.wordpress.com/cradle-to-cradle/.
anybody home? blogging???
hope you’re oke?