Here is a guest-blog by another Cradle to Cradle enthusiast!

My name is Alana Sargent, I'm from the UK but currently living in Stockholm, Sweden. I'm a creative persion, passionate about good design and making the world a better place. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts, with honours in Sustainable Product Design, I have found my passion - Sustainability. With a focus on the advising side of design for sustainability, working alongside designers & clients to produce the most efficient, sustainable solutions; I wish to help the world get at least one step closer to sustainable living.

My View on Cradle to Cradle

The cradle to cradle concept of ensuring materials are not lost at the end of the products life they are in is very important for many reasons.

We only have one planet and if that planet runs out of anything, itʼs tough. It is said that oil, used to make crude oil and subsequently crude oil based polymers/plastics, is in very short supply - what happens when that supply runs out? These virgin precious materials will not last forever.

Weʼll be left with a big problem in industries who reply on oil to survive, and huge areas of useful land filled with old products, plastics, metals, biological materials, and even material hybrids which have a mountain of wealth between them, but in their current states are not useful and cannot be recycled or reused.

By changing the way products are designed right from the beginning, we can design for disassembly, so the materials can be utilised again - rather than being glued and moulded to other materials, making them useless hybrids, which cannot continue their useful life cycle.

Making sure these precious raw materials are turned into something which can continue to evolve into new products and be kept out of land fill, will reduce the amount of virgin material needed from the Earth, reduce the amount of material simply thrown away all while still keeping oil by-product industries alive.

We live in uncertain times about oil and natural gas supplies, confusion over climate change, what is causing it and the effects, and rising consumption needs. Something needs to change - but we cannot just tell everyone to stop buying, stop consuming, stop needing.

The change need to become integrated into everyday life. So people are not forced into recycling, or using their car less. I believe designers, innovators, technologists and scientists are at the forefront of being able to change our habits for the better.

Once these behaviours change - both on a personal and industrial level - they will be integrated easily into daily routines. But as the whole of humankind, we still want to grown and evolve ourselves, progressing with technology and science.

This is all about the balance between nature and the human race - cradle to cradle thinking is a great start in this exciting journey to getting to a more sustainable place for everyone and everything on Earth.