Upcycle - Living Like Dersu

The sub-title for Upcycle, the new book by William McDonough and Michael Braungart, is Beyond Sustainability, Designing for Abundance.  McDonough is a celebrated, American architect/designer. Braungart is a German born design chemist. In this book, they tell the story of Dersu, hero of a Japanese movie, Dersu Uzala.  In this movie, Dersu is a woodsman who becomes guide to explorers passing through his remote forested region.  When a storm comes up, he leads them to shelter in a long disused cabin deep in the wilderness.  There they find dry firewood stacked inside, waiting to be used to warm the place.  After the storm,  Dersu is shocked when the explorers prepare to leave without replenishing the firewood for the next visitors. This is a wonderful metaphor for the way the society we know exploits the earth's resources relentlessly, without regard to the impact on those that will come after.

McDonough and Braungart believe that we humans must go beyond just lightening our footprints on the earth we are totally dependent on. We can, indeed we must, actually leave things better off when we depart than they were before we arrived.  It's a wonderful. idealisitic paradigm for living. 

Upcycle is not the first book from McDonough and Braungart.  A decade ago, they published Cradle to Cradle.  It offered their first reflections on learning to live with the biosphere instead of cravenly exploiting it and leaving it exhausted for future generations.   We have been mindlessly exploiting our planet's land, water, air, and biological resources for a very long time.  That is clearly no longer a viable approach to living. 

In their latest book, the authors seem almost giddy as they present case after case of upcycle thinking that showcase design processes that actually leave things better off than they were before the processes were initiated.  Improving what we were gifted with by generations that came before seems like a very worthy paradigm for humans to embrace.

The ideas showcased in Upcycle are not entirely new.  Urban farming in high rise structures or even below ground, using cost effective, artificial light sources has been around for awhile and has been demonstrated in various settings.  The Dutch model of growing food in greenhouses is especially compelling. What is new is the focus on designing processes and products that make the resources used in those processes and products readily available for recycling at the end of useful life. 

Here's an example from the book. Michael Braungart analyzed a TV set to see how many chemicals went into its production. The answer was 4,360. Most TV sets these days still end up in landfills. They are simply not designed to be reduced to reusable resource form at end of life.  Michael Braungart participated in a program with Phillips Electronics that resulted in the Econova TV, which was designed to be easily disassembled at end of life. It is also PVC-free and its cables are halogen-free.  This is a big leap forward.  All products and processes should be designed this way.  

Here is a lovely quote from the book...

The goal of the Upcycle is a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy, and just world, with clean air, water, soil, and power - economically, equitably, ecologically, and elegantly enjoyed.

I find this to be an incredibly noble sentiment and a motivation entirely worthy of we humans as a species.

I give this book my highest recommendation. I also include William McDonough and Michael Braungart on my list of most admired people. 

Cradle to Cradle

That's the title of a book published in 2002. One of the most interesting things about this book by architects William McDonough and Michael Braungart is that it was printed on biodegradable plastic.

The subtitle of Cradle to Cradle is 'Remaking the Way We Make Things'.  

Here is a diagram that presents the Cradle to Cradle principles.

Cradle to Cradle is a design philosophy that boils down to 'waste equals food',  In essence, it's a repudiation of our throw away society in which billions of tons of  materials that could be reused end up discarded in landfills around the world.  McDonough and Braugart see a future in which everything is recycleable and almost nothing is thrown away. It's a beautiful concept, and a lot has happened since the book came out that reflects its life affirming ideals.  These days when old buildings come down, the brick, steel, concrete, wiring, and mechanical systems are now recycled more often than not.  Moreover, new buildings are being designed purposefully with end-of-life recycling and reuse in mind.

Waste is literally becoming a dirty word. That is a very good thing.

 



 

"What your people call your natural resources, our people call our relatives."

                                                   Oren Lyons - Faith Keeper on the Onondaga

Here is a link to William McDonough's website...
http://www.mcdonough.com/

A New Kind of Pipeline

Ever thought about pipes?  We depend on pipe, millions of miles of buried pipe, in every town and every city to deliver water to the tap, and to conveniently carry our sewage out of sight, out of mind.  We use pipes as conduits throughout buildings to carry  heat and cool air, and to protect electrical and computer wiring. We use pipe to move liquid and gaseous fuels from well head to refinery, then on to distribution centers across the nation.  Pipelines are part of society's crticial infrtastructure.  They are indispensible.

Most sub-surface pipe is made of metal or reinforced concrete.  There are millions of miles of pipeline running underground across America, and in every developed nation on Earth.  A lot of the piping we depend on in the U.S. is aging.  Much of it needs to be replaced.   Because traditional metal and concrete piping is heavy and is fabricated in short sections, it is very labor intensive and expensive to replace.

Now, there is a better and much cheaper way of building or replacing an existing pipeline.

Civil Engineering Professor Mo Ehsani from the University of Arizona has developed a system that allows the fabrication of lightweight piping on site using a combination of honeycombed aerospace plastic  and resin-impregnated, carbon fiber wrap.  Ehsani's new technology - he calls it InfinitiPipe -  can be scaled to produce piping of the size and strength needed to meet different applications. Because the process can go on more or less infinitely,  the joints that cause traditional piping infrstructutre to breakdown are mostly eliminated.

Professor Mo Ehsani with InfinitiPipe

Ehsani invisions mounting the machine that synthesizes the Infiniti pipe on a trailer truck, allowing the piping to be produced right on site, when and where needed.

Truck mounted InfinitPipe synthesis

 The issue now is whether or not the government agencies in charge of ovcerhauling our crumbling sewage and potable water systems will embrace this new technology. The people that make concrete and steel pipe will likely resist such change, despite the cost and safety benefits InfinitiPipe could bring to every community.