The Next Industrial Revolution is Upon Us
Two hundred years ago, the United States started working towards industrialization. We developed manufactured goods at a surprising rate and gave birth to various industries which continue to sustain our economy today. We saw the emergence of factories, railroads, and the steel industry. This eventually gave way to the automobile industry, the airline industry, and information technology. All of this gave led to unprecedented economic success in the United States, with consumerism taking a place in deep in the hearts of most Americans, right next to religion and political identity.
However, we as a nation did not foresee the numerous problems associated with industrialization. We did not foresee air and water pollution. We did not foresee the vast depletion of ecosystems around the planet. We did not see the continuous use and waste of non-renewable resources, particularly oil.
As a result, we have destroyed our environment. This isn't about climate change-- that is an environmental problem we face, yes, but there are more problems at hand. Our increased waste, mostly as a result of inefficient resources, has caused irreversible damage to our ecosystems. Plant and animal species are going extinct at a rate of 3,000 per year, and the it is estimated that roughly half the species we have today will be gone within the next century. Water pollution plagues our cities, as does air pollution. We have a public health crisis, as well as an ecological crisis, which needs to be addressed.
Well, fear not, for the next industrial revolution is upon us: Eco-effective manufacturing.
What is eco-effectiveness? This is a response to the idea of eco-efficiency, which says that we should continue to use natural resources as long as we increase the efficiency of those products. That, my friends, is a foolish idea at best. Eco-efficiency tells us that we should be less bad towards the environment. We shouldn't be less bad; we shouldn't engage in bad environmental practices at all.
So how do we do this? How do we engage in eco-effective design and manufacturing practices?
It's simple: We design products which run along a closed-loop system of design-- that is, they are produced, used, and re-used. No, this doesn't follow the same recycling patterns we follow today, where recycled paper becomes cardboard and that cardboard doesn't become anything else. We're talking about designing products which can be disassembled and either 1) sent back to the environment as biodegradable material, or 2) transformed into other products.
What does this do? This eliminates
waste. When consumers are done with the products they own, they can return them to the manufacturer for a financial incentive. Then those products are either refurnished and put back on the marketplace, or disassembled and used for other purposes.
Sounds crazy, right? In fact, it sounds downright silly. Why would corporations want to reuse these products? Because-- it eliminates a corporations' need to extract additional resources from the earth, which cuts production costs significantly.
This, my friends, is the next industrial revolution: Eco-effective design and manufacturing. This concept, as promoted in the book
Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart, has already been implemented by small businesses and major corporations around the world.
I urge you to go to this
website and learn about this new design strategy. I also urge you purchase the book
Cradle to Cradle for a truly enhancing literary and political experience.
Feel free to ask questions about Cradle-to-Cradle/ eco-effective design. While I am not a true expert on the topic, I know enough to answer basic questions.
