Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

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William McDonough

Michael Braungart

North Point Press, New York, 2002, English,

Nonfiction, Architecture; Nonfiction, Product/Industrial Design

5 x 8 inches, paperback, 208 pages

ISBN: 9780865475878

Suggested Retail Price: $27.50

From the Publisher. A manifesto for a radically different philosophy and practice of manufacture and environmentalism. “Reduce, reuse, recycle,” urge environmentalists—in other words, do more with less in order to minimize damage. As this book argues, however, this approach perpetuates a one-way “cradle” to grave manufacturing model that dates to the Industrial Revolution and casts off as much as 90 percent of the materials it uses as waste, much of it toxic. Why not challenge the notion that human industry must inevitably damage the natural world, they ask. Products might be designed so that, after their useful life, they provide nourishment for something new. Elaborating their principles from experience (re)designing everything from carpeting to corporate campuses, the authors make an exciting and viable case for change.

On 2 book lists

Philip Freelon

On Philip Freelon’s Book List

A call to arms for all, especially design professionals.

Zoë Ryan

On Zoë Ryan’s Book List

A manifesto for our time.

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