But when nothing is valued for what it is, everything is destined to be wasted. Once the values of things refer only to their future usefulness, then an infinite withdrawal of value from the living present has begun. Nothing (and nobody) can then exist that is not theoretically replaceable by something (or somebody) more valuable. The country that we (or some of us) had thought to make our home becomes instead 'a nation rich in natural resources'; the good bounty of the land begins its mechanical metamorphosis into junk, garbage, silt, poison, and other forms of 'waste.' "The inevitable result of such an economy is that no farm or any other usable property can safely be regarded by anyone as a home, no home is ultimately worthy of our loyalty, nothing is ultimately worth doing, and no place or task or person is worth a lifetime's devotion. 'Waste,' in such an economy, must eventually include several categories of humans--the unborn, the old, 'disinvested' farmers, the unemployed, the 'unemployable.' Indeed, once our homeland, our source, is regarded as a resource, we are all sliding downward toward the ashheap or the dump.
We began to tackle the face of mountain we identified as waste. We defined waste, by the way, as any cost that we incurred that does not add value to our customer and that translates to doing everything right the first time, every time. It’s not just waste material, scrapped and low quality and so forth. If you send something to the wrong destination and have to get it back and reship it -- that’s waste. If you incur a bad debt -- that’s waste. So we defined waste very broadly and over time we actually said that any energy that comes from fossil fuel by our definition is waste and we need to eliminate it. We really began to think in different ways about our business in terms of climbing this mountain and it became very clear very quickly this was the smart thing to do. Not only did we start to generate answers for those customers, they embraced us for what we were trying to do. The goodwill in the market place has just been stunning. The rest of the business case is pretty simple. I cost it down not up.
Ray Anderson
Source: Ray Anderson on conquering Mount Sustainability: http://www.greenlivingonline.com/Business/ray-anderson-conquering-mount-sustainability-and-inspiring-us-along-the-way/
Waste equals food, whether it's food for the earth, or for a closed industrial cycle. We manufacture products that go from cradle to grave. We want to manufacture them from cradle to cradle.
The first stage in taking control of the Automaton is to stop the tyranny of habit and the waste of vital force. Vital force is precious and should not be expended thoughtlessly. One can economize it by avoiding futile talk and argument, useless preoccupations, and unnecessary violent movements. Actions should be carefully watched to prevent their becoming automatic, and one should have the courage to alter one’s way of doing them temporarily and from time to time. The limbs should be trained to independent movement, so they can perform different actions simultaneously.
Isha De Lubicz
Source: Opening of the Way: A Practical Guide to the Wisdom of Ancient Egypt, Pages: 105
I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use our natural resources, but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob by wasteful use, the generations that come after us.