Film: Waste = Food

Waste=Food Reflection

One of the most attention grabbing statements made in the film was when the Ford executive said that it essentially took about fifty thousand pounds of material to produce a three thousand pound car. Such a statement shows how inefficient and feudal the manufacturing process is. The single largest goal the human race must achieve today is to transcend itself from the industrial revolution. Based on what I saw in the film, there is a great imbalance between what we are creating, and how those creations are being disposed of. Our technology is far beyond that of what was seen during the industrial revolution. However, the aftermath and subsequent byproducts of such technological feats remain trapped in history. We must advance the imbalanced, and what I would go as far as to saying the neglected realm of manufacturing and technology.

The film touches concepts which can help us achieve this balance. Concepts like Cradle-to-Cradle and Up-Cycling bring forth promising results that will not only move us away from the industrial revolution way of thinking, but help us advanced forward. Currently, one of the largest issues we encounter in the manufacturing and recycling process is the act of Down-Cycling. Down-Cycling is what most people know as conventional recycling. In this process, materials from products are reused, but are reduced in quality, and eventually unusable. An example that is provided is a plastic bottle being recycled to form plastic wood. Such an act actually degrades the quality of the plastic to the point where we are basically only prolonging the time of turning the product into a pollutant which will eventually harm the environment. Up-Cycling proposes that products are recycled in such a way that their quality is either maintained or improved. An example of this process would be to take a water bottle containing antimony and extracting the harmful materials so that the plastic forming the water bottle becomes more purified and deemed higher in quality. This new process of recycling would not only greatly reduce harm caused to the environment by waste materials, but also reduced the amount of materials being processed from raw materials since not as much would be necessary since the products in use would essentially sustain the supply needed to create other products.

The Cradle-to-Cradle concept proposes that we view materials as nutrients so that they can be circulated in the environment to provide nutrients. It also proposes that we make products in such a way that the process of recycling is simplified and that products can be re-purposed without Down-Cycling them. An example of this that the film provides is making a book out of plastic which would make it waterproof. Making the book out of plastic would also give it the capability to be reused as a different plastic product. Inks printed on the book would also have the ability to washed off and made so that they provide nutrition to the environment when hitting the water system. The basic concept of the Cradle-to-Cradle approach is to keep products in what is called the "Technosphere."

I do believe that we are truly a wasteful generation. It is evident based on the film that so much goes into producing one thing, that the reality is the effort and energy, as well as the materials used to produce it aren't really worth the amount of damage we are causing to the environment. At this rate, we will eventually run of materials to use, or cause so much pollution and harm to the environment that the Earth itself will no longer be inhabitable. Also, the human population is exponentially growing. So when we think of these things, the concepts mentioned in the film will actually be necessary to implement in order for us to sustain the Earth as an inhabitable environment.