Can you imagine walking in a beautiful park somewhere and seeing a sign that reads, "Please Litter"? You'd probably think you had accidentally stepped into the twilight zone. But we're not talking about some weird alternate reality here; this is the future envisioned—and being created—by Michael Braungart.

Ingenious chemist and eco-engineer Braungart is making strides to eradicate industrial and consumer pollution by designing and developing waste-free systems. Called Cradle-to-Cradle Design, his system offers a framework for designing products and processes based on a simple equation: Waste = Food. By this logic, manufacturing systems can be carefully designed and engineered to produce only recyclable waste, and consumer products mass produced so that, at the end of their useable life, they are able to be returned to nature as biological enhancements rather than as intractable waste.

Some day very soon you might find yourself carelessly tossing your trash out the window, secure in the knowledge that those snack wrappers are going to melt into plant-friendly fertilizers and that your old cell phone—made of completely biodegradable material—cleverly harbors native plant seeds and the nutrients to make them grow.

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