Cradle to Cradle

While reading the book Cradle to Cradle the concept that struck me the most was the idea of upcycling. Growing up I have always been taught that recycling was good for the environment. That one should not throw away a water bottle or piece of computer paper that might be used for paper, but recycle them instead. In fact, the whole idea of recycling is one that everyone has heard before and is one of the major points that is countered in the book Cradle to Cradle. The authors William McDonough and Michael Braungart argue that instead of making products with recycling an end result of the product, we should design things with their future use in mind. They counter recycling by raising the point that once an item is recycled it a item until it is no longer useful, in which case it gets thrown out and still finds its way to a land field. The only purpose of recycling the item was to delay the step of it reaching the land field.
The same is said of recycling a water bottle or pieces of paper, yes it does save some of the original product but the inputs that have to be put into the original item to get it to the state of renewal is sometimes more harmful and takes more energy that the benefits of recycling it is not even worth it. And that is where the idea of upcycling comes in the authors’ purpose designing products with the idea of the future use of the product in mind. They not only state their claims in the book they also designed the book with that in mind. I am still not entirely sure what the book is made out of, but I do know that if I were to recycle the book, which is water proof, the ink on the pages can be stripe off with hot water and the cover too. The book does not have to go through an elaborate dismantling and remodeling stage like most other books that might be recycled. And because of this, this book is lessening the inputs that have to go into it to the recycling process or upcycling process, I should say. The book can also be made in to other things that are worth more than the book is now.
The whole concept of the designing things that can be reused for something in the future instead of making the product for now and then deciding what to do with it when it is thrown out is a novel idea. I not only loved reading the book, but also enjoyed the fact that the book was water proof and could be used in multiple ways. In fact throughout the week, I would walk up to people and ask them to hold the book for me, they were at first shocked at how much the book weighed and then where amazed at the fact the book was water proof. This experiment was probably one of my favorite. I was also shocked to see how many of my friends were in to the concept of making things with the items future in mind.