nurture nutrient

We recently watched a William McDonough lecture which we recorded from the UC San Diego TV channel and it was a recording from UC Santa Barbara.

I have been familiar with the Cradle to Cradle book McDonough co-wrote but had not had time to find a copy and read it, so having the opportunity to see him lecture turned out to be extraordinary.

From the Publisher
"Reduce, reuse, recycle" urge environmentalists; in other words, do more with less in order to minimize damage. As William McDonough and Michael Braungart argue in their provocative, visionary book, 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.
In fact, why not take nature itself as our model? A tree produces thousands of blossoms in order to create another tree, yet we do not consider its abundance wasteful but safe, beautiful, and highly effective; hence, "waste equals food" is the first principle the book sets forth. Products might be designed so that, after their useful life, they provide nourishment for something new-either as "biological nutrients" that safely re-enter the environment or as "technical nutrients" that circulate within closed-loop industrial cycles, without being "downcycled" into low-grade uses (as most "recyclables" now are).
Elaborating their principles from experience (re)designing everything from carpeting to corporate campuses, the authors make an exciting and viable case for change.
He talked about how everything we produce should be thought of as a nutrient, how there are “natural” materials that are carcinogenic, how planned obsolescence of products, like cars, that are nutrients (not cradle to grave) will create jobs and be good for the us and the earth.
As we heard him talk about planned obsolescence we both intuitively thought this would not be good, but then I realized that things like cars, and computers would work with the model because as technology improves the newer product would be better and if the old one does not go into landfill and create toxic waste what’s the harm. Right then he explained it much better than I just thought it, but basically the same idea. And jobs would be created; technology would keep developing, and creatively would flourish.


To me this concept should become our model.

Now I must read the book.

Now I will have to see how I can apply this model to my art practice, art, nutrient ……..