Cradle to Cradle

This Page is Not Paper

Every day you expose yourself to poison. You do things that cause pollution. You use products and services whose design makes destruction of the ecosystem inevitable: the chair you sit in, the computer you use, your shoes. You wear clothes made by exploited Third World workers. Your baby’s toys contain carcinogens. Could it be otherwise?

This book looks and feels like paper, but it’s not paper. It’s printed on a polymer made from resins and fillers. It didn’t kill any trees. It’s almost a sacrilege to kill a tree just to make paper. The man who developed this polymer sought a substance that would hold ink fast, provide good light reflection without glare, and be comfortable to hold and attractive to read.

That’s an entirely new approach to design. It means looking for something positive. Most environmentalists take a negative approach - don’t do this, don’t do that, get this chemical out, consume less and so on. They make life a chore and ecological awareness a penance.

Why not accentuate the positive? For example, Bedouin goat hair tents don’t just provide shelter. Because of the design and material the nomads use, the tents draw...