RR03

William McDonough and Michael Braungart book has been incredible to read because of the idea of harmony with nature that they promote.
Chapter 1 dealt with the roots of our carbon-foot print problem.  Our society and much of the world is based on a systems (or a series of systems) designed in the Industrial revolution.  During the industrial revolution the people leading the revolution 1. didn't design proper ways to deal with waste and 2. could have no idea how far and quickly the world would evolve, so there was no way - even if they had sought to design waste management systems - that they could have designed effective ways to deal with modern waste.  In this chapter they also begin to explain the title of their book Cradle to Cradle.  Today we live on the idea of cradle to grave that highlights the idea that we are consumers who buy product or things that are really only meant to last one generation. We then throw our old things "away" although they never really go away, they are simply put in a place where we don't have to see or deal with them...at least for now.
Chapter 2 delves further into a point brought up in chapter one, that is it talks about where the by-products of our consumption or consumerism go and the ineffectiveness of the methods we use to deal with all of it.  We as a society have a lot of waste and in the past have just thrown it all into landfills where it sits there, or we burn it putting toxic chemicals into the air or environment.  The most recent method of reuse (disposal really) is recycling, where we take products made of "reusable" materials and reuse parts of them.  But this is really something that only makes a small dent, because not everything that we recycle can be reused or reused forever and for its original purpose.  Some things once used can't be reused in what they were originally used for, instead they are weaker after one use so they are continually downcycled until they end up un-useable with all of our other "trash" in landfills.  This is one thing that really bothers me personally about our society is that we have "evolved" so far to make our lives easier and more continent but have moved so far away from understand and being able to interact with our environment efficiently. 
Chapter 3 simply showcases an example of how we can design items that can be fully eco-friendly and fully recyclable.  To do this the authors use the book itself as a prime example of how this can be done.  The books itself is made from a sturdy plastic material that can be reused as a books, the ink and the glue are both non-toxic (and the ink can be washed from the pages so they can be reused), and finally the books itself is waterproof so it is not easily ruined (causing you to go out and but a new one). 
I found chapter 4 the most interesting because they introduced the idea of biological metabolism and how we can take a clue from nature in order to better design our products.  I think that Apple (or any technology company) is a prim example for what is wrong with our consumer society in terms of recycling or the environment.  No matter what the product when a new one comes out everyone wants one, even if they have a perfectly functional one...although I am not one to lecture because I am incredibly guilty of this myself.  We live in a society that teaches that we can have whatever we want, dream big to achieve, and this kind of thinking has moved away from its original intentions (to inspire) and instead has lead to a loss of being able to distinguish between wants and needs.  The idea of metabolism is to design products so that the products or their components can be reused after their lifetime is done, but in an environment where wants and needs are confused this is not on the forefront of peoples minds. 
Chapter 5 deals with learning to live of the naturally occurring local environments.  For so long the human species has been altering nature and forcing to do things for us, to please us in some way, or to make our lives easier.  Instead of doing what our ancestors did and adapting to a local environment we alter it to fit our needs wherever we may be, but instead of calling this destruction we call this "progress" and "scientific advancements."  A bonus is that local products (like food) Can be healthier because they aren't treated with chemicals or processed to make them last longer in transit and on store shelves.
Finally, chapter 6 talks about how we can effectively implement all of the ideas introduced in this book.  He talks about the 5 steps to implement the ideas; 1. rid ourselves of known pollutants, 2. make decisions based on informed preferences (knowing about products and what goes into them and creating them), 3. identifying products that are falsely "clean,'" 4. slowly implement small positive steps so that its more of a lifestyle change, and 5. finally using this knowledge to design products that are green for our future.