Cradle to Cradle (Paperback)

From the Publisher: "Reduce, reuse, recycle" goes the battle cry of the ecology movement; in other words, do more with less in order to be "eco-efficent." As William McDonough and Michael Braungart argue in this provocative, visionary book, this approach tends to perpetuate rather than challenge the industrial paradigm that got us into such serious environmental trouble in the first place. We continue to rely on linear, one way, "cradle to grave" systems of production that, however unintentionally, are designed to cast off as much as 90 percent of the materials they use as waste, much of it toxic: "eco-efficiency" attempts only to make these old, destructive systems less so, a fatally limited goal.|McDonough and Braungart call into question the notion that human industry must inevitably damage the natural world. They propose a new paradigm for the making of things, taking as their model nature itself, which, as they point out, is highly industrious, productive, and creative even "inefficient" but also extraordinarily effective. Drawing on the designs they have devised for everything from carpeting to corporate campuses, they ground their principles in practice and make an exciting, viable case for change.