A package is worth a thousand words

          William McDonough has been of particular interest to me for quite a few years now.  He is the founder of "Cradle to Cradle", which is a philosphy that is based on the concept of closed loop product cycles.  There are two such cycles outlined, one being a technical nutrient cycle, and the other being a biological nutrient cycle.  I was inspired this week by the biological nutrient cycle, which means that products that we produce can be safely be returned to the earth.  Think of of a tree, a tree grows its leaves, they serve their purpose(photosynthesis, for the tree to grow), and then they die and fall off.  The leaves then are broken down by organisms, and the nutrients are returned to the soil for the tree to use again. 
           My solution is to make all packaging like this.  We grow the packaging, we use it, then we discard it to the earth to become nutrients for the soil.  This came about to me from getting Rib Crib for dinner.  From my order of chicken breast, toast, fries, and sauce, I had several different containers which were comprised of a variety of materials.  There were styrofoam containers, wax paper bags, plastic cups with foil lids, a paper bag, and a plastic bag.  None of this can be composted.  Most of it can't even be recycled.  So it all goes to the landfill.  In my solution, all of this would go to a compost heap in my backyard, to be returned to the soil.  Think about it, those packages were used to get my food home, they had a life of about 15 minutes.  That is a lot of resources just to be immediately taken to the landfill. 
         Now, I recognize most people do not have a compost heap.  This is most likely due to not much of anything being compostable.  But if were were to switch over to compostable packaging, instead of having recycling bins, we would just have a compost heap in the backyard.  It would also provide good soil which could be used for gardening, which many people are beginning to do again.  This concept is similar to Roehner, a textile company faced with the challenge of being sustainable in an economical way.  Think about the fuel savings that the city would see if they have substantially less garbage every week.  Because you are composting instead of throwing things away in the trash, the garbage truck will have further to go before it has to go dump in the landfill.  If it got dramatic enough, the truck could even be smaller, because of the greatly reduced load.  It may not even be necessary as a garbage truck, it may become a technical nutrient truck, picking up only things that can be reused and recycled.
       This concept is feasible, we must just be motivated, like William McDonough, and advocate that it be done.  Packaging accounts for a large volume of our trash, if we take care of it in a sustainable manner, we can substantially reduce our dependence on landfills.