WASTE = FOOD

SCRIPT

 

 

02:27

VOICE OVER

China is growing rapidly. In the coming years some 200 million houses will have to be built in rural areas. If they use bricks, it will take 25% of the top layer of the agricultural land and half of the coal reserves to make the bricks. China has a serious problem.

 

02:49

VOICE OVER

Ford Motor Company also had a problem. 

What do you do when you have been making cars for 80 years and your production site has become one of the largest and most polluted industrial areas in the world? 

 

03:08

VOICE OVER

What is NIKE to do when they have spread so many shoes over the world that they start to become a waste problem?

 

03:17

VOICE OVER

A textile manufacturer has a problem if its waste is seen as chemically dangerous, and the Government prohibits dumping or burning …..

 

03:30

VOICE OVER

In fact we all have a problem. 

How are we to deal with rapidly growing economies, with a pattern of high consumption, with falling raw materials reserves, and with mountains of waste? It seems like economic madness. 

03:46

 

03:46

Bill McDonough –(no title)

If you look at the waste it’s really a very bad business proposition. Because why should anybody make anything that has no value or has a cost? So I think the fundamental transformation will actually occur because of economic forces.  It won’t be because of some moral issue or some technical revelation. It will be because waste is basically stupid.

 

04:17

VOICE OVER

An American architect and a German chemist are unleashing an industrial revolution that will sweep through industry as an ecological storm in the coming years. 

They base their ideas on the example of Nature, where waste is no problem because waste is food, food for growth….

04:38

 

04:40 - TITLE: WASTE = FOOD – 04:45

 

04:46 - TITLE (top centred) - Switzerland, Widnau

 

04:50

VOICE OVER

In the Rhinevalley in Switzerland there is an old textile factory. Rohner. In the early nineties, the company was faced with the choice: move, or come up with a solution for their waste problem…. 

The former CEO Albin Kälin had no idea how to solve that problem...

 

05:09

05:11 - TITLE:    ALBIN KÄLIN – Former managing director,  RohnerTextil AG

We wanted to try to solve the waste problem, get rid of the waste in a more adequate way. We wanted to use the waste that we produced at the mill. We wanted to burn that at the mill to save oil. And the officials came and said: You’re not allowed to do this. And we have made a lot of studies. And it was just a dead-end road for us.

 

05:35

VOICE OVER

Their textile waste was regarded as hazardous chemical waste.....a colleague of Kälin knew an American designer / architect, William McDonough, who perhaps had a solution. Kälin had him come over and picked him up from the airport.....

 

05:50

ALBIN KÄLIN

And during this drive from Zürich Airport to Heerbrugg where the mill was located. William McDonough told me: Waste = food. And it made a click. If we can make our waste to be food, we can solve all the problems.

 

06:14

VOICE OVER

Make the waste completely harmless for man, plant, and animal. In other words, make the textile fully biodegradable…. That was the solution.

But how can you achieve that with the synthetic fibres and the very toxic dyes used by Rohner. 

On the advice of the American designer, Kälin asked the German chemist, Michael Braungart, to look at these problems …..

 

06:38

ALBIN KÄLIN

And I was really very nervous. Because Michael Braungart had a Greenpeace history. And as I was an industrialist, to let a former Greenpeace activist into the mill, you don’t feel so easy.

 

06:59

VOICE OVER

Braungart may have been a Greenpeace activist, but he also happened to be the best Ecological Chemist in the world….

 

There began a search for strong natural fibres. They chose a mix of cotton and Ramie (Boehmeria nivea), a very  tough plant fibre ….....but the toxicity of the dyes proved to be an almost insuperable problem....

 

07:23

ALBIN KÄLIN 

And we tried to contact all dye chemical manufacturers around the world. And we wanted them to present all the details of all environmentally safe products. And all of them said: We are not going to work with you. We are not going to open our books.

 

07:48

VOICE OVER

In the end they found the chemical company Ciba Geigy prepared to cooperate with them.... a search began among 1.600 different dyes. 

They found only 16 dyes that were completely harmless, but with them they could create any required colour ……

 

Rohner was now able to manufacture high-quality compostable textiles, used among other things for covering airplane seats.

08:13

Rohner’s problem was solved.

From the textile waste the factory makes felt that is sold to local farmers.

They use it to cover their strawberry plants in the Winter. 

The felt decomposes completely and thus becomes food for the plants....

8:47

The problem of waste water from the factory was solved at the same time... it now comes out of the factory cleaner than it goes in....

 

Kälin was convinced, he became a committed fan of the German chemist and the American designer

 

8:47

ALBIN KÄLIN

It changed my life. Really, it changed my life. Because it’s such an easy solution.

And no one actually thought of it before in this way. And I have been discussing it with a lot of people before, with technicians, engineers, people from other industries. And they were all stuck in the dead-end road. And this for me was the solution.

 

09:20 - TITLE (top centred) - USA, New York

 

09:24

VOICE OVER

The story of Rohner begins in New York. 

William McDonough is a designer and architect. In 1991 he had to build a crèche, and he wanted to avoid toxic construction materials. Someone said that he should have a word with the German chemist, Michael Braungart.

 

09:44

NO TITLES YET -  WILLIAM MCDONOUGH / MICHAEL BRAUNGART 

McDonough

I’d heard about him as the most important ecological toxicologist that I could meet.

 

09:54

Braungart

When I first met William McDonough it was when I was opening an office of my institute in New York.

 

10:01

McDonough

So I went to the opening party.

 

10:03

Braungart

McDonough came half an hour earlier.

 

10:05

McDonough

I was the first one there.

 

10:06

Braungart

He had a really nice place in the East Village.

 

10:09

McDonough

We sat on a rooftop above Greenwich Village in New York, looking down on the street at the taxis and up at the skyscrapers. 

 

10:17

Braungart

And we opened the office and all the European community from companies like AKZO and DSM from the Netherlands passed by and came in.

 

10:27

McDonough

And we started talking and we talked the whole party through. I think he ignored everybody else.

 

10:33

Braungart

And basically I missed the whole opening because I was talking only to him.

 

10:39

McDonough

We stayed till it was dark.

 

10:41

Braungart

All the people came by from UNICEF or UN and said hello. And I said hello, and continued talking to McDonough because it was so interesting talking to him and sharing ideas etc. 

 

10:54

McDonough

I just started imagining: What if the vehicles were different, what if the bottles we drank out were different, what if our shoes were different, what if our clothes were different, what if the building were different. What would it all look like? We just started imagining the future.

 

 

11:09

VOICE OVER

McDonough and Braungart have become inseparable. Together they set up a company for intelligent product systems….

 

11:18

11:21 - TITLE:  WILLIAM MCDONOUGH – ARCHITECT / DESIGNER

When I first said: Waste equals food, we were talking about the overall approach to what he called Intelligent Product System. And the Intelligent Product System says that everything in biology should go back to soil safely and be healthy. So the waste of a system that would go back to soil. Like this, this may not be recycled but this could be compostable. Right? That should be safe and healthy. So waste = food.

 

12:00

12:10 - TITLE: MICHAEL BRAUNGART - CHEMIST

On the earth we are the only ones who take materials and put them into landfills. So we make waste. And even when we try to minimize waste, like zero emissions and zero waste, we still accept the concept of waste. So what we do, we eliminate the concept of waste. For us, we decided that everything is a nutrient. Either for a biological system or for a technical system.  So it’s beneficial. So we look at a cherry tree in Spring and say: Look, what a waste of energy, what a waste of materials. But every material of this cherry tree is beneficial. Every material becomes a nutrient. It goes back in a biological cycle and the more blossoms from the cherry tree there are, the better it is. So we generate systems which are beneficial. 

12:47

In this case we say: Waste equals food. Not like McDonald’s where food equals waste. It is different. We go there and say and look that every material is beneficial.  So the more “waste” we have, the better it is. So it’s not about cleaner production or things like that. 

13:06

Nature is only productive when it’s dirty, when it’s sludge. The more sludge, the better. Not clean. Not Mr. Clean. Not the American housewife perspective of the early 50s, to make it all clean. No, it’s only productive when it really generates space and life for the others. 

 

 

13:25 - TITLE (top centred) : Germany, Burladingen

 

13:39

VOICE OVER

At a recent press conference, Grupp, Director of the German clothing manufacturer Trigema, proudly announced his latest product. 

 

13:48

VOICE OVER

Michael Braungart developed fully compostable, toxin-free T- Shirts for him.

The T-shirts are a typical product of the Braungart and McDonough philosophy.

When designing a product, bear in mind that one day it will be thrown away, and make sure that it then becomes raw material for a new product.

The compostable T-shirts are raw material for nature, the biosphere. 

14:16

Materials that don’t decompose should become ‘food’ for the ‘technosphere’ – all the technical products around us. 

The book, Cradle To Cradle, in which Braungart and McDonough explain their ideas, is a good example of a product that can be reused in the technosphere. 

The book is made of plastic and is therefore waterproof. It is printed with ink that disappears if you heat it. 

The plastic can be re-melted to make new books.

That sounds like ordinary recycling, but there is a subtle difference.

 

14:47

BILL MCDONOUGH 

We don’t really recycle products. That’s the problem. We downcycle products. Products typically lose their quality if they go through recycling. They’re not recycled, they’re downcycled. So typically what would happen is something like would become plastic wood or a park bench or a flower pot, on its way to a landfill or an incinerator. So it’s losing its quality as it goes. 

15:15

What we’re looking at are things that are truly recycled so they go back to their condition. Or come back to the system and actually gets upcycled.  Where, if it’s a suboptimal material where if the inks aren’t ideal or the additives aren’t perfect, we can actually purify the product  when it comes back to the system.

15:39

If you look at a plastic bottle for water, it has antimony, a carcinogenic heavy metal as a residue from catalytic reaction. We can take out the antimony when it comes back and make it better so it upcycles, rather than put it in a park bench and mess it up with other chemicals an burn it. So it’s a subtle distinction.

 

16:07 - TITLE (Top Centred) -: USA, Beaverton

 

16:10

VOICE OVER

The ideas of Braungart and McDonough sound almost Utopian, but they are taken very seriously by major manufacturers.

In Baeverton, a suburb of Portland lies the NIKE World Campus the headquarters of NIKE Worldwide.

16:29

John Hoke is the NIKE Head of Footware Design. He has taken the message to heart. You don’t eat shoes, but they do wear out and end up in the biosphere.

 

16:40

16: 42 - TITLE: JOHN HOKE -  Vice President Global Footwear Design, NIKE 

I think we have to think about the chemical compounds of the product itself. Because the theory would be that as you’re using the shoe, it’s eliminating and rubbing off the material and getting into the ground. And worms are eating it. So I think we had to start with the chemical makeup of all the materials we had.  And so from there we’d think about the design for disassembly at some point where you can collect the product back and reclaim every single aspect of the shoe and every piece of material and then reuse that in some way to create a new product.

17:18

We have to go back to the source vendors and tell them our goal is that this material is to be food for something somewhere. So reducing and eliminating all the toxics.

 

17:30

VOICE OVER

NIKE takes the Waste = Food concept seriously, and has set itself a goal: No more waste by 2020. 

 

17:43

VOICE OVER

A first step is their “Re-use a shoe” programme. On a modest scale, NIKE has begun to take back used shoes. The rubber is cut from the shoes and reused. 

 

17:55

JOHN HOKE 

The design for disassembly would be key. Because once we take the shoes back, making the design easy to take apart and to get back to its components and raw materials is a big constraint. 

 

18:12

VOICE OVER

The soles become a kind of rubber granulate that is used as a top layer for running tracks, tennis and basketball courts. 

 

But that is just a start. The ultimate aim is that all the waste from the shoes should become raw material again for new shoes...

Fully recyclable shoes that do not pollute - that is the goal …. 

NIKE has recently introduced a product that is heading in the right direction…..

 

18:38

JOHN HOKE

We are proud of a shoe line called Nike Considered. And Considered design is a philosophy of design that asks our design staff to look a the entire life cycle of a shoe and design with less toxics using the power of geometry over chemistry, using more natural fibres and materials which are recyclable or farm products. Nike Considered has been in the market place for a bit, has done very well for us. The consumers seem to like it.

19:10

I happen to be wearing a shoe right here. And I will talk a little bit about what the shoe does and why we’re so proud of it. 

As I mentioned it is a Considered product, so you can see on the inside of the shoe itself, it´s just one piece of leather with no foaming, no backing.  We´ve tried to reduce as many toxics as possible out of the product. It uses raw natural hemps and materials to create the upper itself. 

19:40

One of the most powerful things about this Considered opportunity is that we’ve reduced as much as possible all the adhesives. And so typically a glue adhesive puts the out-sole onto the shoe itself. In this case we’ve studied geometry and created a powerful geometry that snap-fits the out-sole to the upper itself. And this is stitched down with a thread. So we’re eliminating as many adhesives as we possibly can. And so the inside itself from a disassembly perspective, if we were to take this whole thing apart, this just snaps into two units. The inside unit and the outside unit. The threads are taken off and this goes right back into a stream of materials that can be used for a post-secondary life. 

 

20:31

VOICE OVER

This all sounds great, but can you achieve normal profitability in this way?

 

20:38

JOHN HOKE

I think we can. Yes, I think that the Waste = Food principle is, again, it’s a very provocative idea. I think it’s not just an idea of design and creation. It’s an idea of business, that there is a limit to raw materials, that we recognise that. And as we assemble new products thinking about the business proposition of how you can use products and raw materials on products for a certain lifetime. And then have those raw materials turned into something else, is a profit engine.

 

21:18

VOICE OVER

McDonough and Braungart visualize a world in which literally all the waste is food for the biosphere or the technosphere.

In that way we’ll no longer have to feel guilty about consumption and the resulting waste. After all, there’ll be no more waste.

 

21:38

21 :42 - TITLE - MICHAEL BRAUNGART - CHEMIST

Yes, we celebrate abundance. We can throw things away. We can litter, we can enjoy littering. We can use materials back into cycles. Right now we lose about 4 to 6 thousand more top soil than we rebuild.  Because our agriculture doesn’t work, it doesn’t rebuild soil. Our waste, we take things and we don’t put them back into biological cycles anymore.  So what we think, no, let’s be productive and be happy to have materials to put them back. But everything’s a nutrient. So the more material we have, the more we “waste”, the better it is for the others.

22:14

Like, we develop for example for Unilever, which is a Dutch company, an ice cream packaging which is not just biodegradable. Biodegradable is just the minimum. I am biodegradable, you are biodegradable. But so what? That’s just the minimum. Like sustainable. But there it starts. This ice cream packaging, the film is a liquid at room temperature. It’s only film when it’s frozen.

22:41

And you take it out, out of the freezer, rip it off and you throw it away. It becomes a liquid within hours and it degrades within hours. But it’s not only biodegradable, it contains seeds from real plants. So when you throw it away, you generate life. Like the others as well. All the song birds etc. They take the seeds and all the berries and they generate life by that. And all their excrements are materials as well that generate life. Only we take things and don’t give anything back.

 

23:13- TITLE - WILLIAM MC DONOUGH – ARCHITECT / DESIGNER

As an architect, you know, I come from the larger scale production. Michael, as a chemist, comes from various small-scale productions. So you put the two of us together and our work can range from a molecule up to regional city planning. And everything in between. So, you know, I design factories where this kind of work gets done. And we try and solar power them and cover them with photosynthetic materials. We like to see a building like a tree where it makes oxygen and sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distils water, purifies the air. Changes colours with the seasons, creates microclimates. Why wouldn’t you want to do that too?

 

24:03

Voice Over

Producing and consuming without waste; buildings that imitate nature. Who wouldn’t want that? McDonough has now become famous. He was presented with an award by Bill Clinton; and Time Magazine called him a hero for the planet.

His true-to-nature and energy-friendly buildings attract worldwide attention.

 

 

24:41

BILL MCDONOUGH

This one over here, for example, produces more energy than it needs to operate. These are solar collectors on the roof and this is a waste treatment plant that uses natural systems for the water treatment. So the sun shines on this roof. You can see it here again. And then causes more energy over the course of the year than the building needs, along with the solar collectors in the parking lot. And then the waste water is taken through this greenhouse into this pond and purified. So this building is like a tree.

 

 

25:17 - TITLE (Top Centred):  USA, Lake Michigan

 

25:22

VOICE OVER

Close to Lake Michigan you’ll find the factories of Herman Miller.

 

For decades, the company has been one of the world’s best known manufacturers of design furniture… some of their designs have already been included in museum collections.

Herman Miller is one of the top companies in Fortune magazine’s list of the 100 best companies...

25:48

In the early nineties, McDonough designed their assembly hall. 

People called the building the Greenhouse... and it was immediately a resounding success. 

It is a building in which daylight dominates, and natural air circulation replaces air conditioning. 

From the very first day, the new building had a noticeable effect on the workers…

 

26:08

26:12 - TITLE: ANDY LOCK - Executive Vice President Herman Miller

In the old plant it wasn’t a great environment and we actually had more than our fair share of general industrial relation problems in that plant. And you always wonder, what’s going on, why was that plant particularly difficult? When we brought the folks into this building, into the Greenhouse, they responded amazingly well to it. Put simply: The building respects the people who are inside it. They became positive, more productive. We have less absenteeism. Indeed, we bring all our customers through this building and we actually take them out onto the production floor and let them meet the people working out there. Because they are just so positive.

26:49

And it’s a great example of, when you build a building that really respects individuals, gives them light, gives them the space, gives them the air quality they need, they respond doubly in terms of their commitment to the organisation.

 

27:02

VOICE OVER

McDonough’s philosophy is not limited to the inside of the building. In his vision, a building must not conflict with nature but form a part of it. 

The waste water goes to pools on the site where there is plenty of room for plants and animals.

In the United States it has become the standard for Green buildings.

McDonough also managed to persuade Herman Miller to take a closer look at their products. 

The company now makes chairs according to the Cradle to Cradle concept, the strict production protocol of McDonough and Braungart. 

 

27:39

27:45 - TITLE: PAUL MURRAY, Director of environmental affairs, Herman Miller

This chair is one great example. It’s called the Mirror. The Mirror is a chair that was really the first product that used the Cradle to Cradle protocol. It’s a product that’s easily disassembled. We actually evaluated all the various materials in this chair and I think there’s only a couple of materials in here that still have the red designation. Which means that there’s still something wrong with them in the environmental sense. And that could be let’s say a recycled steel part. It might have chrome in it yet. So that would make it red and you know, there’s not much you can do about that. But things like this plastic back, we actually had the supplier of this plastic take out materials that were harmful to the environment. And even though it’s still still flexible, we took out the things that were not so kind to the environment that also made it flexible. We just used the more natural ones.

 

28:34

VOICE OVER

The Cradle to Cradle protocol is characterised by strict requirements:

Are the materials completely safe for man and animal?

Can the materials be reused in the biosphere or the technosphere?

Can the product be disassembled quickly and easily?

 

28:51

PAUL MURRAY

Interesting, yes, the chair comes completely apart. It takes about 15 minutes for one person. And there isn’t a joint or a place where it’s actually assembled that takes longer than 15 seconds. So each part can come apart. And there are few pieces like this arm pad that is a mixture. That mixture can also come apart very quickly and very easily for disassembly into its various component parts and peel the foam off. So again, nothing more than 15 seconds for the chair to come apart. So it makes it easy then to capture those materials for their next life, as the name Cradle to Cradle implies.

 

29:34

ANDY LOCK

When you think about it clearly, part of our criteria for a Cradle to Cradle product is that it can be disassembled quickly. Actually disassembling something quickly saves lots of money. It’s much, much more effective and actually makes it easier to assemble it in the first place. So these criteria don’t just become a burden to your business. They actually become an enabler of a better product and a more effective product for us.

 

30:00

VOICE OVER

The Cradle to Cradle protocol sounds like design for sustainability but it is much more wide-ranging.

 

30:07

MICHAEL BRAUNGART 

Sustainability is not enough for us. Because if I would ask you: How is your relationship with your girlfriend? And you would say: sustainable. Then I would say: Oh, I’m so sorry for you. If this is the key thing, sustainability, then it’s just a minimum. You can somehow deal with it. It’s just maintenance. Now sustainability is the minimum, but from there it starts.

 

30:34

BILL MCDONOUGH 

Our design assignment as two characteristics. One is an emotional one and one is a technical one. The emotional one is: How do we design systems that love all the children of all species for all time? And that’s a very emotional connection. It’s about love in celebration of the natural world and the accrual of more and more species. Not the destruction of species.

 

30:59

MICHAEL BRAUNGART 

I think it’s time that people can become native to this planet. That they can say, hey, isn’t it good that I’m here. And we can make the other species on this planet happy that we are here.  It also means we develop things that are not less bad, but which are good for the others, which are supportive, which generate more life than just being less bad. Less bad is no good. It means that we are defining environmental protection like: destroying a little less. Like saying: Oh, I won’t use my car today, so I’m protecting the environment. There’s no protection with that. It’s an abuse of the term protection. Because to destroy a little less doesn’t protect anything.

 

31:56

BILL MCDONOUGH – ARCHITECT / DESIGNER

The goal is very simple and technical. And the goal is a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy and just world with clean air, soil, water and power. Economically, equitably, ecologically and elegantly enjoyed. Period. 

 

32:17 - TITLE (Top Centred): USA, DETROIT

 

32:18

VOICE OVER

Beside the river Rouge in Detroit lies one of the largest and oldest industrial sites in the world: the Ford Rouge Center, the home base of the Ford Motor Company.

This is where the first Ford rolled from the production line. 

Cars have been built there for 80 years. 

32:41

For 80 years there was no consideration for the environment, Nature, and the river. There was enormous pollution; and Ford was faced with the choice – either abandon the site or redevelop it.  

Bill Ford decided to overhaul the industrial site, it had to become cleaner.

He was advised to go and talk to Bill McDonough.

 

33:02

TITLE: TIMOTHY O’BRIEN – Deputy Chief of Staff Ford Motor Company

I’ve heard Bill Ford tell the story that he was reluctant to do so. You know, you get introduced to a lot of people that supposedly have the magic solution to these issues. And so he just set a 30-minute meeting to get acquainted with one and other largely, I’m sure he thought it was going to be a courtesy meeting. Well, that 30-minute meeting turned into several hours. And alternately turned into the assignment to apply his theories to the Ford Rouge Center.

 

33:27

BILL MCDOUNOUGH

When I met Bill Ford it was more that he convinced himself than I convinced him.

He was already prepared to look for a way to do something positive. The commission to do the river Rouge which is a 2 billion dollar project with a 20 year schedule, was given to me in public without my knowledge. And I think it was because that way the company was committed to it and I was committed to it. And even though it looked impossible, we  just were stuck. And so we had to produce shareholder value, or we were both in trouble. So that was the assignment. And that’s what we did.

 

 

34:14

VOICE OVER

Construction began on the renovation of the Rouge Center in 2000.

 

34:19

34:22 - TITLE: BILL FORD, CEO Ford Motor Company

Today we are unveiling the heritage project, the environmental renovation of the Rouge. The goal of the heritage project is to transform the icon of 20^th century manufacturing into the model of 21^st century, sustainable manufacturing. 

 

34:37

VOICE OVER

The site was renovated at a cost of 2 billion (US) dollars according to the ideas of Michael Braungart and Bill McDonough, ideas that took quite some getting used to for the people at Ford.

 

34:45

TIMOTHY O’BRIEN 

I was really honestly emotionally moved by Bill and Michael. When you first meet them, they look a little cooky. Certainly to American businessmen. I met Bill McDonough and you’ve heard this story, before, he was wearing a bow tie and a cape and beret. It’s not at all what you meet, you know, this is how we look at Ford Motor Company.  

35:08

And he was an architect from the university of Virginia. And Michael was this chemist from Germany that used to be in Greenpeace. So your initial reaction is, of course, these guys are nothing but trouble, they’re going to be, oh my God. Why do I have to work with them? 

35:23

Bill’s objective for us was, we want this to be a site where you’d be happy to have your children play. Now, in the beginning we didn’t even know how to deal with this. What the heck kind of an objective is that? How do we measure it? Does that make any sense? But as I began to think about it, I said to myself: I have kids. And I would say no, I don’t want my children to play here. My guess is virtually any parent would give that same answer. 

35: 50

While now I’ve got a site with wetlands, green space, wildlife, honeybees. And I think I can take the same parents, including me, and ask them the same question and get a yes answer. So in reality that was a business-like objective and it was measurable. We didn’t think of it that way when we first heard about it.

 

36:14

VOICE OVER

The Rouge site was transformed into a kind of industrial nature park just as at Herman Miller. The waste water from the whole site is purified naturally. Use is made of sun energy, the new factory was built with many windows to allow daylight in. The whole production process has been cleaned up, and attention is paid to all waste flows.

 

36:48

VOICE OVER

The roof of the new production hall is one big meadow covered with sedum that purifies the rain water and provides the birds with a new home. All very fine and natural but most business managers will see it as an exaggerated form of eco-luxury.

37:05

BILL MCDONOUGH

That’s because they see it as a cost. They presume that each one of these things adds to the cost of regular production and that it’s just icing on a cake. Or cake instead of bread. And that’s Utopian. But it’s not. Because if you look at our production facility for Ford Motor Company, we save 35 million dollars doing it this way.

 

37:32

TIMOTHY O’BRIEN 

What we found is if you think about it in the design stage, you can come up with environmental programs that actually save you money and don’t cost you money. So let’s take the green roof as an example. Now it cost money to put a green roof on top of a truck plant. But it actually will save us many times the cost of putting it on there. It will double the useful life of the roof, because it will protect the roof from UV degradation which causes leaks. Re-roofing a 10,5 acre roof is a several million dollar job. So it will save us money there. 

38:04

It saves us money on heating and cooling costs, because it insulates the plant from the extremes from hot and cold. And it saves us money on regulatory costs. Because it absorbs storm water that we would otherwise have to take to a chemical treatment plant before we could discharge it to the nearby river. Instead we’re letting nature do what nature does.

38:24

That storm water today is now absorbed in the green roof and it’s naturally filtered before it ever gets to the Rouge river. So saving us really millions of dollars as opposed to costing us anything. That’s just one example. 

 

38:37

BILL MCDONOUGH

If Utopianism is profitable business, then I guess this is Utopia. 

 

38:41

TIMOTHY O’BRIEN 

That’s what’s so inspirational. The world is full of dreamers. I don’t have any time for dreamers. I have time for people that are inspirational and have thought through the real issues that you have to deal with as a business and have developed a formula to successfully navigate that challenge. 

 

39:00

VOICE OVER

Ford also involved McDonough and Braungart in the development of a completely new car, a car powered by hydrogen, with seats filled with Soya foam and tyres of maize plastic. The car is to be made entirely from biodegradable materials or technical materials that can be used again as raw materials.

 

 

39:22

TIMOTHY O’BRIEN

In the business future I can imagine that vehicle has a value in the future. Its components can be reused, either reconfigured to a different kind of vehicle or reapplied in some other business. Maybe not our business. That is not how vehicles are built today. I build you a vehicle. I hope it lasts a few years. After a few years you and I have to figure out what we’re going to do with that vehicle. We’re probably going to send it to a scrap yard or a landfill or something of that nature. So it has no value. 

39:53

And I have to go out and buy more stuff and build another new vehicle. That doesn’t make any sense to me. There’s a lot of valuable stuff in there. You know there’s a statistic we found when we were looking at the Rouge project. Today it takes 50,000 pounds of raw materials to make a 3,000 pound car. That’s a lot of waste. And we can change that. 

40:16

Why don’t we use 3,000 pounds of material to build a 3,000 pound car? It will cost an awful lot less. There will be a lot less of a environmental problems. I’ll be happy, my customer will be happy.

I think this is a philosophy that is going to affect every industry. And we’re going to, by the way, make a lot of money on this. This makes business sense. And that’s one of the things most impressed me about Bill and Michael.

40:43

I’ve listened to any number of thinkers and writers on the subject of sustainability. Which is often described as the triple bottom line of social, environmental and economic performance. But almost every one of them, after they articulate their triple bottom line, talk exclusively about the environmental component. A few talk about the social component. Almost none of them have bothered to figure out how to make business sense out of sustainability.

41:10

That’s what is unique about Bill and Michael.

 

41:14 - TITLE (Top centred): China, Beijing, 

 

41:14

VOICE OVER

2006, a meeting takes place in Hotel Beijing between an American delegation and representatives of the Chinese government and industry. 

The meeting is behind closed doors, and only Chinese State Television is allowed to film.

 

41:31

TITLE: CCTV

GIRL on TV

China and the United States will continue to work together to promote rural development through technological cooperation. Government officials, entrepreneurs and scholars from the two countries have praised the efforts made in water safety, energy saving and waste disposal.

 

41:47

VOICE OVER

The meeting is also attended by Madame Deng Nan, daughter of the former Chinese president, Deng Xiao Ping. The subject: the effects of the ideas of McDonough and Braungart.

 

41:59

CCTV - GIRL on TV

China’s new countryside development is a state-initiated project in the increasing of our agricultural activity, building a harmonious society and reducing disparities between urban and rural areas. And that’s it for this edition of China Today. Stay tuned for the weather forecast. From me and all of the team here in Bejing. Bye for now. 

 

42:22

BILL MCDONOUGH

China is looking very hard at environmental issues because there in a complete crisis there. So they have all the different situations of human experience. They have the most destructive events going on. And they have some of the most hopeful events going on. And the entire range in between. So the president of China has called for a circular economy. And part of that call for circular economy calls for Cradle to Cradle thinking. It’s national policy in their new 5-year plan. It means that materials are in closed cycles and they come back. And Waste = Food. And their systems are designed so that they’re safe and healthy and a circle in the economy and come back and go out and come back. 43:09

And that people are fed and the soils are kept and the economy can continue because the materials and energy are in closed cycles. So it means renewable energy, safe materials, it means new production process..

 

43:24

VOICE OVER

Madame Deng Nan is associated with the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology. She knows McDonough very well; and the Chinese president, JinTao, is a supporter of Braungart and McDonough. Their book has become the Chinese handbook for the ‘Circular Economy’.

 

43:47

VOICE OVER

The American delegation is on its way from Beijing to the village of Huangbaiyu. 

 

45:17 - TITLE (Top Centred): CHINA, HUANGBAIYU

 

There the festive opening is to take place of a number of model houses designed by McDonough and Braungart, and built with cheap, completely recyclable materials.

 

44:07

 

BILL MCDONOUGH

China represents one of the biggest issues in the world today. Because 400 million people will be in new housing in the next 12 years. That would be like rebuilding the entire infrastructure of housing in the United States in seven years. That’s how big this is.  And if they use brick to build it, which is their conventional building material, they would need to destroy their soils, probably 25% of their farm land. And burn a lot of coal to fire the brick.

44:44

So we have two project types that we’re doing right now at scale. One is six new cities, developing conceptual master plans for Cradle to Cradle cities. And the other is developing new building materials, like this one over here. To build the cities without using brick in highly insulated, low embodied energy, low-energy use technique. 

 

 

45:38

VOICE OVER

The experimental houses in Huang Baiyu are built of material consisting of two layers of compressed sand or other fine material, mixed with a strong binding agent. This replaces bricks and concrete. Between them is compressed straw or a reusable kind of polystyrene foam. 

 

46:11

VOICE OVER

Inside, simple luxury. Estimated building costs, approximately 6000 Euros – a sum that must be feasible for the average rural Chinese to raise, they think.

 

46:16

INTERVIEW

46:21 - TITLE: DING SHUFENG - shopkeeper,  Huangbaiyu

Is it to expensive?

I might be possible to buy for us farmers.

If we build a new house ourselves it also costs 60,000 to 70,000 yuan.

I like this new house.

So you don’t find it too expensive?

It’s too expensive for ordinary people.

But we don’t know exactly how much it’s going to cost.

That is not yet known.

46:46

 

46:45

VOICE OVER

However the garden walls are still made of old fashioned concrete... and the gardens are small for occupants who are used to growing their own food in their gardens 

The houses are only the experimental beginning of a great Chinese adventure. 

In fact the programme includes complete Cradle to Cradle cities...

 

 

47:04

BILL MCDONOUGH 

Well, China in its last two 5-year plans was focused on industrialization and building of its cities to take the rural population that was moving to the cities and to industrialize and develop it’s market economy. So we’re doing these demonstration projects, for example here in Jinan. This is taking a degraded site that has been downwind of various things that have polluted it and then rebuilding that site into an eco-city here. Now the idea of restoring landscape is critical. Because if they’re going to lose all their farmland by urban development, then our cities where we look at, trying to put the farms on the roofs, say, let’s reserve and preserve our farmland. Because we’re going to need it for a healthy, thriving population. 

47:58

But even in villages we’re looking at the idea that in the next 5-year plan, the idea is to develop the villages in a way that people don’t want to leave. And so we’re looking at how to build sustainable housing, sustainable enterprises, grow fuels and develop new kinds of agriculture that allow people to stay and thrive in the villages, instead of having to go to the cities. I think China is very worried that with this massive migration, 700 million people in the villages, 7 to 8 hundred million. If 400 million go to the cities, they’re afraid they won’t find jobs in the future. And then we get slums. And if we get slums, we get social unrest. 

48:41

The other problem is, as the cities expand into the countryside, the farmers are concerned their land is being taken for the new development. So there’s civil unrest among the peasants. So any government formed by a peasant uprising has to get worried when the peasants are upset. So that’s the part of the new model.

 

49:17

VOICE OVER

The Chinese revolution has taken a new turn. 

The concept that waste can be food is understood by large countries and major companies. If the concept can only find its way to the consumer then the revolution can begin.

 

 

49:34

MICHAEL BRAUNGART

We have the opportunity now.  We have smart designers and scientists and it’s time to reintegrate everything. Everybody can do his own work and can go to the supermarket and can say: Hey, can I compost it, can I burn it without a filter? Or do you take it back? And the society is so complex that everybody who does this generates so much momentum to make changes that even 5?n make changes.

I talked to Mikail Gorbatsjov about Perestroika and Glasnost. And Gorbatsjov said: Look, we only had about 5% of the Communist Party. Everybody else didn’t understand what we are doing. But 5% really understood and they made a change. And they could destroy the whole totalitarian regime.

50:24

We don’t have a totalitarian regime. We have democracy. We can do things. So it’s not dangerous for us. We can just reinvent everything in a free society. And it’s time to do this.

50:35

 

 

50:43 - TITLE ROLL

 

Director:                      Rob van Hattum

 

Camera:                      Niels van ‘t Hoff

 

Sound:                         Mark Witte

                                      Loes Wormmeester

 

Film editing:                Jeroen van den Berk

 

Colour correction:      Ronald van Dieren 

 

Sound mixing:            Jack Bol

 

Research:                   Gijs Meyer Swantee

 

Production:                 Madeleine Somer

                                      Karin Spiegel

 

Editors in Chief:         Doke Romeijn

                                      Frank Wiering

 

Special thanks to:      Anne Meydam

                                      Rick Schulberg

                                      Mark Schurman

                                      Jennifer Moore

                                      Shannon Shoul

                                      Sandra Strähler

                                      Margaret Sanders

                                      Ivo Forster

                                      Limin Dai

                                      Martijn Kieft

                                      AVRI – waste treatment

                                      European Space Agency

 

 

 

TITLE LIST

WASTE = FOOD

 

04:41 – TITLE: WASTE = FOOD

 

04:46 - TITLE (top centred) - Switzerland, Widnau

 

05:10 - TITLE:    ALBIN KÄLIN – Former Managing Director,  Rohner Textil AG

 

09:20 - TITLE (top centred) - USA, New York

 

11:21 - TITLE:    WILLIAM MCDONOUGH – Architect / Designer

 

12:10 - TITLE: MICHAEL BRAUNGART – Chemist

 

13:25 - TITLE (top centred) : Germany, Burladingen

 

16:07 - TITLE (top Centred): USA, Beaverton

 

16:42 - TITLE: JOHN HOKE -  Vice President Global Footwear Design, NIKE

 

21:37 – TITEL: MICHAEL BRAUNGART – Chemist

 

23:12 - TITEL: WILLIAM MCDONOUGH – Architect / Designer

 

25:19 - TITLE (top Centred):  USA, Lake Michigan

 

26:11 - TITLE: ANDY LOCK - Executive Vice President, Herman Miller

 

28:07 - TITLE: PAUL MURRAY, Director of environmental affairs, Herman Miller

 

32:17 - TITLE (top Centred): USA, Detroit

 

33:03 - TITLE: TIMOTHY O’BRIEN – Deputy Chief of Staff Ford Motor Company

 

34:22 - TITLE: BILL FORD

 

41:13 - TITLE (top centred): CHINA, Beijing

 

41:34 - TITLE: CCTV

 

43:50 - TITLE (top Centred): CHINA, Huangbaiyu

 

46:21 - TITLE: DING SHUFENG - Villager,  Huangbaiyu

 

MUSICLIST

 

WASTE = FOOD 

 

VPRO BACKLIGHT

 

 

CD: Clarity – Piano & Strings

Publisher: West One Music, Ltd, London – www.west-one-music.com

Catalog Number: WOM012

# used: 08 - Reflection

Composer: Paul Reeves 

Minutes used: 2:27 / 0:51 / 0:36

 

 

CD: Drama 3 

Composers: Nick Bardoni and Steve Warr

Publisher: KPM Music Ltd, London – www.playkpm.com

Catalog Number: KPM517 CD

 

# used: 02 – automaton

Minutes Used: 2:27 / 0:51 / 0:36

 

# used: 06 – Quiet Conspiracy

Minutes used: 0:55 / 0:44 / 0:47 / 0:32

 

# used: 09 – Full metal Hero

Minutes used: 1:50 / 2:41 / 1:31 / 1:56 / 2:12 / 1:46 / 1:51 / 2:22 / 1:56

 

 

CD: Dérives

Composer: René Aubry

Publisher: As de Coeur Productions – Paris  / Distribution Media 7

Catalog Number: AS CD 3013

# used: 06 – L’ abime

Minutes Used: 0:40 / 0:41 / 1:51 / 0:42 / 0:05 / 1:08

 

 

Wouldn’t it be nice, Beach Boys

Composer: Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Tony Asher