The Video: Waste = Food
Discussion Question: Today we’re just going to go through the statements one by one and discuss our reactions.
Statements made in the video:
1. Waste is food for growth.
2. All waste from a factory should be safe to go back into the soil, so it can literally be used to grow food.
3. Design everything to become a nutrient.
4. Materials that don’t become food for the biosphere should become food for the technosphere.
5. We don’t actually recycle products. We downcycle products, they lose quality as they’re used. True recycling means they can be used to make the same thing, or something higher quality.
6. It’s time for humans to think of themselves as one of the species on this planet, and make the other species on the planet happy that we are here.
7. Less bad = no good. Defining environmental protection as destroying a little less, is misusing the term ‘protection’. Destroying less doesn’t protect anything.
8. This building produces more energy than it needs, and purifies the water that comes from it. This building is like a tree.
9. We lose thousands of tons of topsoil because we don’t rebuild the nutrients, so we have less land to grow food on.
10. The goal is very simple and technical, and the goal is a delightfully diverse safe healthy and just world with clean air, water, soil, and power. Economically, equitably, ecologically and elegantly enjoyed. Period.
11. We wanted the Ford factory site to be a place where your children could play. We found this idea incomprehensible. How was this a measurable business objective? No way would I let my kid play in that polluted place! But now the area IS a place I would let my kid play in. And it turned out that this idea actually was a measurable business objective.
12. We found that we can come up with environmental programs that actually save you money. Green roof saved us many times the cost of the roof. It doubles the life of the roof, because it protects it from UV. saves money on heating and cooling because of insulation. Saves money on regulatory costs, because it absorbs storm water that otherwise would have to be chemically treated before it could be let off-site.
13. Our cars now lose value within a year, in 10 years are valueless. Make a vehicle that has value in the future, the components can be re-used, or used as food for the biosphere or the technosphere.
14. It takes 50,000 pounds of raw materials to make a 3000 pound car. that’s a lot of waste, and we can change that. Why not use 3000 pounds of materials to make a 3000 pound car? It’ll cost a lot less, my customer will be happier, I’ll be happier, the environment will be happier.
15. 5% of the Russian Communist party understood perestroika and what Gorbachov was trying to do, and yet the change was made. So we only need to get 5% of the world to understand and then everything can change. It’s not dangerous, we can just reinvent society.
Questions asked in the video:
16. Why should we make anything that has no value, or has a cost?
17. Buildings should be like trees: Make oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distils water, purifies the air, changes colors with the seasons, creates microclimates. Why wouldn’t you want them to do that, too?
18. Sustainability is just a minium. Would you want just a ‘sustainable’ relationship with your girlfriend?
19. How do we design systems that love all the children of all the species of the world, for all time?
Discussion Question: Today we’re just going to go through the questions and statements one by one and discuss our reactions to the statements.
Contents: (If you have limited time, just watch *starred sections):
0-1:46 General Introduction (this can be skipped)
*1:46 Fabric Factory Story – changing waste saved the factory
7:46 How the two men met and started working together
*9:25 Ideas and Theories Waste=Food
11:35 Compostable t-shirts
12:18 Ideas and Theories of Waste=Food
14:32 Nike Story – recyclable shoe program
19:19 Theory Ice-cream packages that melt and plant seeds
21:14 Why the two men work well together
21:43 A building should be like a tree
22:05 William McDonogh’s architecture
*23:19 Herman Miller Factory story. The factory building improved labor relations.
*28:00 Theory: Just being ‘sustainable’ is not enough. Love as a basis for technology and economy and design. We as a species start generating things which support other life.
30:18 Ford factory redisign. Cars have been built on this site for 80 years. So polluted, had to be cleaned up. Turned into an industrial nature park.
*35:13 Eco-luxury? Cost of ecological improvements verses savings generated by them. Story of the roof of the Ford factory.
37:07 Story of New Ford car: Car can be completely re-used as raw materials.
38:28 Sustainablility should make business sense.
39:15 Circular Chinese Economy
41:55 Housing built of sustainable materials
47:40 Conclusion
