An engineer explains how to make products less toxic and more sustainable.
In this debut science book, Goldstein takes readers into the realms of manufacturing and recycling to explore how things—particularly consumer goods—are made, how the process can be improved, and what happens when they move into the recycling system. Capsule portraits of entrepreneurs involved in different aspects of sustainable manufacturing (a project manager who maintains a database of construction materials and their ingredients, a distributor of compostable flatware and packaging) appear throughout. These are woven into a narrative that includes a concise history of plastics from Bakelite to the present; Nike’s shift toward corporate social responsibility; and a visit to a steel plant. The book does a particularly good job explaining the complicated world of recycling, where both economics and feasibility limit the materials that can be productively broken down and reused. That section concludes with examples of cutting-edge techniques that offer new recycling possibilities. Goldstein frequently refers to earlier works on the subject, showing how sustainable manufacturing has evolved over the past decade. And she makes a compelling case for its eventual mainstream viability, drawing connections between lean manufacturing strategies and a more efficient use of raw materials, for instance. The book is well-written, with enough detailed information to engage knowledgeable readers but without technical jargon or minutiae that might overwhelm a novice. The tone is casual and intimate (“It’s great to have flatware that composts, but not if it falls apart when we’re using it”), and the author often uses her own experiences as a source of examples and anecdotes. While the volume maintains an upbeat perspective, Goldstein acknowledges the challenges of bringing sustainability to the manufacturing process and offers a candid evaluation of the effectiveness of each technology discussed. Readers will be left with the sense that although sustainability is not an easy feature to add to the manufacturing process, it is indeed possible to do so with both ecological and financial benefits.
An engrossing, comprehensive overview of sustainable manufacturing and recycling and the challenges to expanding their adoption.Pub Date: April 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9995956-1-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Bebo Press
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
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