The Story of Stuff - Annie Leonard [80]
Biomimicry experts have identified the following list of core principles in how nature functions. Nature:
runs on sunlight and uses only the energy it needs
uses a water-based chemistry
fits form to function
recycles everything
rewards cooperation
banks on diversity
demands local expertise
curbs excesses from within
taps the power of limits
Biomimicry takes these principles and figures out how to make human technologies, infrastructure, and products that adhere to them as well.187
What might this look like in practice? Janine Benyus, founder of the Biomimicry Institute, has endless examples. Rather than using toxic inks and phthalates to color Stuff, why don’t we imitate the peacock, which creates the brilliant colors we see in its plumage through shape—layers that allow light to bounce off it in ways that translate as color to the eye. Instead of burning fossil fuels to heat up kilns for firing high-tech ceramics, we can mimic mother-of-pearl, which self-assembles a substance twice as strong as those ceramics in seawater: no heat required. The threads that hold a mussel to a rock dissolve after two years; the packaging we design can likewise be engineered to dissolve when it’s no longer needed or wanted. Rather than mining virgin minerals, we can copy microbes that pull metals out of water.188 Engineers and green chemists are already experimenting with all of these alternatives with success. They just need funds for continued research and development and government regulations on their side to achieve a full breakthrough.
Another revolution in the production of our Stuff is both necessary and possible. With existing and developing approaches, within a decade we could transform today’s most destructive processes and eliminate the most toxic ingredients from our factories and products. With the government mandating this level of change, business people putting their money where their souls (and grandkids) are, and designers and scientists doing what they do best—innovate and improve!—we could be there in no time.
CHAPTER 3
DISTRIBUTION
Once upon a time it was simple: the only Stuff available to us was made locally or regionally. We picked it up in town, or it was transported to us in a horse-drawn wagon, often by the same person who made it. Unusual items—silks or spices, for example—occasionally arrived from faraway sources via one of three routes: returning armies loaded down with plundered loot, explorers returning from exotic lands, or the rare international traders who braved the dangers and shouldered the costs of overseas travel. By the fifteenth century, Europe had entered the Age of Exploration, and rich people were financing ventures specifically to acquire valuable Stuff like minerals (especially gold), textiles, spices, fruit, coffee, sugar. But even then, the elite consumers who could afford such treats had to exercise immense patience waiting while the goods made the voyage back and had to pay dearly for them once they arrived.1
Today nearly everyone on earth is able to consume Stuff made on the other side of the planet. Stuff travels at lightning speed around the world. We expect to have everything at our fingertips in the exact color and the exact style we want, and not just fast but immediately. In just a couple of generations, humankind has accelerated and complicated the distribution of goods at a mind-boggling rate. It’s kind of like our grandparents were playing checkers, able to move their simple round pieces one or two steps forward or diagonally. Then our parents were playing chess, with a whole new array of two-dimensional moves by sophisticated bishops, knights,