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An Interview with Michael Braungart
Professor Dr. Michael Braungart is a professor at the Leuphana University Lüneburg, the founder and scientific CEO of EPEA Internationale Ummltforschung GmbH, and the cofounder and scientific director of McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC). Since working for Greenpeace International in the 1980s, Dr. Braungart has been an international leader on research and consultancy for eco-effective products. The Journal of International Affairs spoke with Braungart about the Cradle to Cradle concept that he developed.
Journal of International Affairs (JIA): You first became involved with Greenpeace in the 1980s, helping them establish a chemistry section. How did you get started with this? What did your work look like?
Michael Braungart (MB): Chemistry is amazingly primitive when it comes to environmental health. When I was younger, I started to protest against chemistry because it was polluting rivers and destroying species diversity. I started to analyze human breast milk to find out what chemicals actually accumulate in biological systems. And with that, I joined Greenpeace. I was the first activist in Greenpeace who had a scientific background and could climb chimneys, operate rubber boats, and organize protests. For example, I blocked ships dumping waste in the oceans by swimming around them. Waste was often dumped in the North Sea or the Atlantic. New York City in the 1980s was still dumping municipal waste in the ocean. They just put it in a boat, went out 50 miles, and dumped it. It was quite toxic and dangerous work, but we thought this would be the only way to protest against what was being done.
One of the last protest activities that I coordinated and organized was against the chemical industry in 1986. The chemical company Sandoz had a big fire and basically destroyed the whole life of the river Rhine for more than 200 miles. All the fish were dying and the water turned pink. This protest was different from ones in the past. Normally, there was security, and when they could reach us, they would beat us. We climbed up a chimney of the company Ciba Geigy and the company behaved differently. It was cold and dangerous, so the company promised us if we climbed down at night, they would let us climb up...