Waste = Food

To protect our planet, should we recycle everything?

A documentary about the Cradle to Cradle principle: designers and manufacturers should incorporate the recyclability of the materials of which the products are made off. Each product, once it's discarded, should be (non-toxic) food for the Biosphere or be completely recyclable in the Technosphere. This principle is already being tried out by a number of major companies.

This film shows large companies (Nike, Ford) and smaller companies (Herman Miller, Rohner Textile) that experiment with completely clean and sustainable production methods and products according to the concept that Waste = Food. But not only companies are embracing this principle: in China, a model village is being built following this principle.

Natural resources are being depleted on a rapid scale while production and consumption are rising rapidly in nations like China and India. The waste production is enormous and if we do not do anything we will soon have turned all our resources into one big messy landfill.

William McDonough, an American designer, and Michael Braungart, a German chemist, think they have found a way out. Their aim is to re-design every product according to the principle nature uses to grow: Waste = Food. McDonough and Braungart realised that the Waste = Food principle could be applied to all man-made products. They could not foresee that their company: McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) would start a new Industrial Revolution.

Selected at Pariscience 2008 - Earth Prize
See the showing : Sunday 12th October 2008 from 16h00 to 17h30