Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

by William McDonough

Robert Lilienfeld and William Rathje’s 1998 Use Less Stuff: Environmental Solutions for Who We Really Are. Consumers must take the lead in reducing negative environmental impact, the authors argue: “The simple truth is that all of our major environmental concerns are either caused by, or contribute to, the ever-increasing consumption of goods and services.” This devouring impulse in Western culture is comparable, they maintain, to a drug or alcohol addiction: “Recycling is an aspirin, alleviating a rather large collective hangover . . . overconsumption.” Or again, “The best way to reduce any environmental impact is not to recycle more, but to produce and dispose of less.”