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In their book Cradle to Cradle, authors William McDonough and Michael Braungart succinctly explain why we need to rethink the way we're making things, putting environmental concerns ahead of cost point or ease of production. With an architect and a chemist serving as your guides throughout the book, McDonough and Braungart don't go brow beating as much as they go about asking the pertinent and relevant questions.

While not everyone may be on board with some of the questions they raised, what they said made sense. It left me asking questions, too.

Here's a green nugget from Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the way we make things:

"The design intention behind the current industrial infrastructure is to make an attractive product that is affordable, meets regulations, performs well enough, and last long enough to meet market expectations. Such a product fulfills the manufacturer's desires and some of the customers' expectations as well. But from our perspective, products that are not designed particularly for human and ecological health are unintelligent and inelegant—what we call crude products.

For example, the average mass-produced piece of polyester clothing and typical water bottle both contain antimony, a toxic heavy metal known to cause cancer under certain circumstances. Let's put aside for the moment the issues of whether this substance represents a specific danger to the user. The question we would pose as designers is: Why is it here? Is it necessary? Actually, it is not necessary: antimony is a current catalyst in the polymerization process and is not necessary for polyester production. What happens when this discarded product is 'recycled' (that is, downcycled) and mixed with other materials?"