47 pages • 1 hour read
William McDonough, Michael BraungartCradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2002A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaSymbols & Motifs
Trees
McDonough and Braungart use the tree as a symbol of the ideal manufacturing process. In looking closely at trees and the role they play in the earth’s ecosystem, the authors find the perfect “cradle-to-cradle” model: “The tree, among the finest of nature’s creations, plays a crucial and multifaceted role in our interdependent ecosystem. As such, it has been an important model and metaphor for our thinking, as you will discover” (5).
In Chapter 3, the authors examine the cherry tree at length. The praise its “regenerative abundance” (78) and the fact that, as the tree grows, it sets other beneficial processes in motion: It provides food for both humans and microorganisms, it produces oxygen for clean air, and it stabilizes the soil. As a tree manufactures “product,” the more its immediate surrounding environment is enriched. Unlike modern industry, trees are thoroughly integrated into the communities they serve: “The tree is not an isolated entity cut off from the systems around it: it is inextricably and productively engaged with them. This is a key difference between the growth of industrial systems as they now stand and the growth of nature” (79).
Also in Chapter 3, the authors tell the story of a “forbidden cherry tree,” which is when a group of residents in Hanover, Germany banded together to plant a cherry tree on their street, despite it being against community zoning laws: “What the residents viewed as delightful, the legislature viewed as a risk. People might slip on fallen cherries and cherry blossoms” (85). The authors see this as another needless way that humans are alienated from the natural world: “The forbidden fruit tree is a useful metaphor for a culture of control, for the barriers erected and maintained—whether physical or ideological—between nature and human industry” (85).
Trees appear again as a symbol of the ideal manufacturing process in Chapter 5. In this chapter, the authors perform a thought experiment, pondering what our world would look like if buildings served their environments as trees do: “We imagined ways that it [a building] could purify the air, create shade and habitat, enrich soil, and change with the seasons, eventually accruing more energy than it needs to operation” (138). In practice, this included features such as: “Solar panels on the roof; a grove of trees on the building’s north side for wind protection and diversity; an interior designed to change and adapt to people’s aesthetic and functional preferences with raised floors and leased carpeting” (138). Imagined in this way, buildings would “pay back with interest” (138) the energy the consume.
Ants
Ants are another symbol seen throughout Cradle to Cradle, used to represent an ideal that humans should strive for. Despite being a massive population, ants do not leave a significant ecological footprint:
Consider this: all the ants on the planet, taken together, have a biomass greater than that of humans. Ants have been incredibly industrious for millions of years. Yet their productiveness nourishes plants, animals, and soil. Human industry has been in full swing for little over a century, yet it has brought about a decline in almost every ecosystem on the planet. Nature doesn’t have a design problem. People do (16).
The authors are addressing the popular idea that the human population is expanding too much, too rapidly. They contend that it is not the size of the human population that is problematic; it is a “design problem,” referring to their methods of industry and manufacturing.
Ants are a useful model for humans because “everything they make and use returns to the cradle-to-cradle cycles of nature” (79). Everything they use and produce is biodegradable, and so as their lives go on, they supply nutrients and enrich their environment around them. Even though their population is incredibly large, they are not nearly as destructive as humans. Again, the authors emphasize the denseness of the ant population: “Individually we are much larger than ants, but collectively their biomass exceeds ours. Just as there is almost no corner of the globe untouched by human presence, there is almost no habitat, from harsh desert to inner city, untouched by some species of ant” (79). Still, despite their vastness of their population, ants play a crucial role in maintaining the health of the environment around them, and they are not nearly as harmful to their environment as human beings.
Toxins
Virtually all man-made products—from furniture to children’s toys to cooking utensils and everything in between—are composed of some degree of toxic materials, according to the authors. That is due to current practices within the manufacturing industry.
That we are surrounded by invisible toxins at all times is a motif throughout the book, which emphasizes the theme that our entire industrial manufacturing system needs a major change. The authors will breakdown exactly how environments we perceive as safe—as with this domestic scene, taken from the introduction—are actually toxic and could have potentially harmful effects on our health:
Let’s take a closer look. First, that comfortable chair you are sitting on. Did you know that the fabric contains mutagenic materials, heavy metals, dangerous chemicals, and dyes that are often labeled hazardous be regulators—except when they are presented and sold to a customer? As you shift in your seat, particles of the fabric abrade and are taken up by your nose, mouth, and lungs, hazardous materials and all. Were they on the menu when you ordered that chair? (3).
Even children’s toys are liable to contain toxic materials: “That plastic rattle the baby is playing with—should she be putting it in her mouth? If it’s made of PVC plastic, there’s a good chance it contains phthalates, known to cause liver cancer in animals (and suspected to cause endocrine disruption), along with toxic dyes, lubricants, antioxidants, and ultraviolet stabilizers” (5). In this environment, the need for a radical changes to our manufacturing processes seems inevitable.
Through the text, the authors ask why we allow products to be designed and manufactured this way, and how has it come to be that it is acceptable for most every day, household products to contain pollutants. They have many examples from daily life: “For example, the average mass-produced piece of polyester clothing and a typical water bottle both contain antimony, a toxic heavy metal known to cause cancer under certain circumstances” (37). The need for not just a new method of manufacturing, but a new mode of thinking, becomes readily apparent.
People’s Guilt
The authors draw attention to the guilt that people feel when they are told they’re doing harm to the environment. This guilt is a motif throughout the book, as that guilt motivates people as consumers to make certain choices.
The “green” movement is often invoked by marketers as a selling tool, suggesting that people make the “right” decision to purchase a product that has some positive effect (or no negative impact) on the environment. When consumers do not make the “right” decision, they feel a certain level of shame for not making the “eco-friendly” choice. Knowing that guilt is a motivating factor for people, the authors draw attention to how our industries are doing harm in unexpected ways. For example, in the case of shoe manufacturing:
The shoes you’ve kicked off on that carpet look innocuous enough. But chances are, they were manufactured in a developing country where occupational health standards—regulations that determine how much workers can be exposed to certain chemicals—are probably less stringent than in Western Europe or the United States, perhaps even nonexistent […] How did you end up bringing home social inequity and feelings of guilt when all you wanted was new footwear? (4).
Guilt, however, is often misplaced. The authors see consumers as being berated for their choices as having a “depressing” effect on people: “The environmental message that ‘consumers’ take from all this can be strident and depressing: Stop being so bad, so materialistic, so greedy. Do whatever you can, no matter how inconvenient, to limit your ‘consumption’” (6). The authors reject the concept of being “less bad” in favor of their own idea of just being good. The “be less bad” approach has been useful for creating change, as the authors point out: “The ‘be less bad’ environmental approaches to industry have been crucial in sending important messages of environmental concern—messages that continue to catch the public’s attention and to spur important research. At the same time, they forward conclusions that are less useful” (66). In the authors’ eco-effective vision there is no guilt over the environment.
