The premise is great, but even when the author mentions the destruction of an ecosystem (such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill) there is no mention of the indigenous people whose lives, livelihoods, communities, and way of life were also destroyed.
The author also claims that pollution and other aspects of non-sustainable manufacturing are not because of immoral corporate decisions, but just "outdated design". Yikes. ( )

I won a copy from an eco contest! I heard so much about it and finally had a chance to read it. Initially I thought it would have been a stiff and dry read, but it's incredibly enjoyable to read (for an econerdy gal like me) and truly gives me hope for humans and concern for not only ourselves but for the impact we have on the planet and on generations of life forms to come. ( )

Great book. Liked it a lot. ( )

3.25 stars

The authors are an architect and a chemist who work together to make/create more environmentally-friendly/sustainable items. They actually start off by saying that what we mostly do now is not good enough; that is, there are still issues with trying to be not “as bad” vs. all-out bad. They want to make things “good” (for human health, for the environment, and even for company’s/industry’s bottom lines, economically. They say it can be done (and they have examples of things they’ve done working with various companies to do those things).

It’s probably something we need to hear, but it’s new, and so for some things, I had a hard time wrapping my head around the ideas: eco-effective vs eco-efficient, upcycling vs downcycling, biological nutrients and technical nutrients, and more. I think I figured out downcycling -- when we currently recycle, this is what happens. This means that the items we recycle are being reused/remade, but they are of lower quality. Because they are of lower quality, more potential toxins/chemicals need to be added to “shore things up”, so to speak. I’m probably not explaining that well.

They did have some good examples and I think they are probably correct in what they are suggesting, but it was hard for me to figure all of it out. Maybe there needs to be more written on this, as the more I read, I’ll likely clue in a bit better. But what’s unfortunate (and I hadn’t realized) is that this book was published 20 years ago, in 2002. Without having heard much more about these concepts, I’m concerned that they haven’t really taken root, still. ( )

Great intro to upcycling and more. Still don’t know how we can move from local, 30 years old project to a global change. I felt both super optimistic and doubtful at the same time. Gonna think more about the materials themselves when buying or building. ( )