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June 22, 2005
All Wet
Once upon a time, I had to figure out a way to produce how-to books to be displayed for sale in Wal-Mart and Home Depot’s garden sections. Which meant they had to be waterproof. Which meant that instead of paper, they were printed on plastic… and since I was working for a supposedly-sustainable company, said plastic was supposedly recyclable.
After many calls to the manufacturer of the stuff, it was still unclear that a whole book made out of Polyart is technically recyclable at all… and the stuff weighs a lot more than paper, which means we used a lot more energy to ship the books around the country. Oh but we were green in theory, that all that counts, right? Oh, how I despise green washing, especially when I have a hand in it. I don’t work at that company anymore.
Cradle to Cradle is a rather well-known book in the sustainable design world, also printed on plastic. Because I’m not a designer, I gave my copy to The Engineer (just to follow up on this post, his boyfriend is moving to SF in a couple weeks). He happily reports that the book is even heavier after you take it into the bathtub, as it never really dries out. Mold Alert, Fun with Plastic!
Despite what one might assume, Cradle to Cradle might actually be a more interesting bathtub read than this plastic book. A printing company sent this me to prove they had experience with plastic, and I’m not surprised they had extras lying around; most of the Amazon reviewers agree with me that the writing isn’t worth whatever it’s printed on.
Posted by Elizabeth at June 22, 2005 02:32 PM