The Upcycle - McDonough and Braungart - Part 1

The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability--
Designing for Abundance
William McDonough &
Michael Braungart

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 19

 January 19, 2017 

Book 4 - The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability--Designing for Abundance
by William McDonough and Michael Braungart (2013)

 Part 1 - Pages xv-xvii, 1-49

Reading Time - 60 minutes

I actually wanted to read another book that these guys wrote - Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way we Make Things - but... I couldn't find it in the library. So... I had to make do with this one. Here's the definition of an upcycle from the authors:

The goal of the upcycle is a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy and just world with clean air, water, soil and power - economically, equitably, ecologically and elegantly enjoyed.

Now... that is a really nice change from Silent Spring by Rachel Carson! Makes me think that 50 years later... we have learned a few things and there is hope for the human race.

The basic idea is this... when we create something, we design them so that they can create more things, rather than just ending up in the landfill. Take for example... the pop can. A beautifully designed piece of aluminum that can be endlessly recycled and turned into other things. Now take the tetra pack... you know, like a juice box. Horribly designed. It has a layer of thin aluminum, some plastic and some paper. Trying to disentangle those from each other leads to very poor quality material. Not a great upcycle.

Cradle to Cradle - The Upcycle Chart

So often we are trying to minimize the negative impact of something - whether it's pollution or energy waste or whatever. The authors say... what if we took it even farther and rather than just reaching zero... that we design and create things that actually make the world a better place. So rather than just reducing the pollutants in water from a factory, we could actually make the water cleaner than when it entered the factory. Wouldn't that be cool??

And it can be economically viable... more than that... it can make companies even more money cause if they're not polluting the environment, they can save all sorts of bucks!