Today I finished reading my book club's selection for this month, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. It is a very interesting book about how things are made so cheaply that it is actually often more inexpensive to buy a new a small appliance than fix a broken one. Our current industrial model is cradle to grave (except there isn't really a 'grave' and our garbage wreaks havoc in our landfills) and the authors propose the idea that we design things that can be rebirthed as something new. It is a fascinating book, but to be honest, my favorite thing about it was the book itself. It is a paperless, waterproof book. (And it truly is waterproof. I know I shouldn't have done it, since it's a library book, but I purposely dripped water on one of the pages to test it. The water wiped off without leaving a trace or sign that it had been wet.) I recommend checking out the physical book sometime just to see the possibility of a synthetic 'paper' made from plastic resins and inorganic fillers. It is super durable and I would love to have books made like this so I could take a bath and read and not have to worry about getting the pages wet. Doesn't that sound nice?
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Cradle to Cradle
Today I finished reading my book club's selection for this month, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. It is a very interesting book about how things are made so cheaply that it is actually often more inexpensive to buy a new a small appliance than fix a broken one. Our current industrial model is cradle to grave (except there isn't really a 'grave' and our garbage wreaks havoc in our landfills) and the authors propose the idea that we design things that can be rebirthed as something new. It is a fascinating book, but to be honest, my favorite thing about it was the book itself. It is a paperless, waterproof book. (And it truly is waterproof. I know I shouldn't have done it, since it's a library book, but I purposely dripped water on one of the pages to test it. The water wiped off without leaving a trace or sign that it had been wet.) I recommend checking out the physical book sometime just to see the possibility of a synthetic 'paper' made from plastic resins and inorganic fillers. It is super durable and I would love to have books made like this so I could take a bath and read and not have to worry about getting the pages wet. Doesn't that sound nice?
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