Ordinarily, I wouldn’t recommend a manifesto as pleasure reading. But Cradle to Cradle, a manifesto calling for a new industrial revolution, is as witty as it is compelling. The book is also a pleasure to hold in your hands. The pages are unusually heavy, smooth, and white. The type is wonderfully crisp. And not a single tree was harmed in making it. It is printed on synthetic paper made of plastic resins and inorganic fillers. According to the authors, these materials can be broken down and reused endlessly to make more books or other products.
McDonough, an architect, and Braungart, a chemist, want to shake up your world. How bad are our environmental problems? Did you know that the computer you are using right now contains more than a thousand different materials, including heavy metals, toxic gases, acids, and more? That you may be eating particles of your electric mixer along with your cake? That the soles of your sneakers may contain lead? We can’t just throw products like this away, they say, because there is no “away.” They argue that the answer is not to return to a pre-industrial model, as many environmentalists want. Instead, we should use technology and creativity to develop products and buildings that actively nourish the earth. Factories that produce drinking water as a byproduct. Packaging that can be used as fertilizer.
The book is written in short, pithy chapters. The authors know how to entertain, and they are geniuses at thinking up catchy slogans: “Why being less bad is no good.” “Waste equals food.” Their description of what is wrong with a shoe is as funny as it is scary. So read it for enjoyment, and you just might be inspired as well. For McDonough and Braungart are true visionaries, and their optimism is infectious. Why not take their book to the beach or the pool, or read it in the bathtub? It’s waterproof.
