Random Thoughts of Chris Tilley

I finally finished reading 'Cradle to Cradle'. A book I highly recommend for all, particularly anyone doing product development. There were a couple of key points that caught my eye.

The first was waste as food. That idea is that every step any waste should be food for either a biological cycle or for a technological cycle. So something that decomposes safely and provides nutrition feeds the biological cycle. The technology cycle is feed by the polymers and metals that went in to product. That leads to the next idea.

Monstrous hybrids are materials that could have been food for either cycle but had been irrevocably contaminated. There example is the recycling of cars where the steel get mixed with other metals from the car and can not be used as steel in cars again. It is no longer strong enough and is of lesser value.

Having finished the book I wanted more info and searched out their website. On their site I discovered that you can get your products certified. I was interested in what products had been certified. The one that caught my eye was gDiapers. A brilliant idea that looks to be as convenient as disposable and far more environmentally friendly. I would think that if you bleach your cloth diaper these would have them beat as well. I showed them to my wife and she thinks they are a great idea. She did the math and told me that they were comparable in cost to disposables. Basically most of it is reusable and washable and the there is a flushable/compostable pad.