Blogging For a Reason: Cradle-to-Cradle

This week’s assignment was to implement an idea that takes one product and extends the life to another product of equal or more value. I decided to think of a product in the technical nutrients category and came up with upcycling cardboard boxes (only non-waxed cardboard would work) . As we all know in the apparel industry we use an abundant amount of cardboard boxes from shipping items we sell or to receive items from other companies. At my internship I would see over 100 boxes a day easily and all we did with them was bale them and set them out by the curb.

Then someone from a recycling company would drive by and pick them up. We never knew what happened to them. My idea for this cradle-to-cradle assignment would be to come up with some type of company that bought plain cardboard boxes and made them into household decorating objects such as picture frames, shelving, or even rugs. Currently picture frames and inexpensive shelving are made up of plastic and are mostly just imitating wood. So why not take cardboard boxes, something this is just thrown away or broken down and make it into items we are already going to buy? From experience it seems like there are more boxes being made then recycled. I got this idea from our reading Waste Equals Food when Henry Ford implemented taking the shipping crates and turning them into the floorboards of his cars. There a number of websites out there that tell or show people how to take cardboard and make into to something.

But no manufacturing companies at the moment. Another great thing about cardboard is that it is decomposable over time and, according to the video Rhoener Textiles making sure products from the beginning can be out back into the Earth as food is what manufacturing companies need to start doing. Once people no longer need their items then they can easily disassemble them (without sending it back to the company) and put in down (shredded or not) in their garden as a way to separate weeds fom the new soil you put down and to act as mulch (this I learned from my Nana who learned it from her dad).