Is Redesigning Products Completely Possible?

The authors promise that economic growth is not inherently bad, and what is needed to remedy the consumption problem is not increased efficiency but rather a complete redesigning of products. According to the authors, if items are designed with their future use in mind, they can be reused and recycled without any downgrading of the material. They say that eventually this can lead to a technical life cycle in which products are returned into the consumption chain fully and waste is eliminated. They also state that it is very possible to design these items to be “nutritious” to the surrounding environment rather than harmful, and without any negative “off-gassing.”
I definitely feel that they are on track. Designing items to be broken down again after use should not seem like an overly-complicated task that is beyond us. Obviously furniture is nowhere near of the same complexity as other items, but that is one example of how things can be built and disassembled. All that needs to be done is to design items in a way so that they are not permanently bounded together. The one thing I am skeptical about, however, is the promise that one day we can design items which are perfectly nutritious to the environment and pose no ill effects. I certainly think it is possible to eliminate many of these questionable chemicals and replace them with benign alternatives. However, it seems to me that a substantial portion of our technology is dependent on too many different components to be able to phase out all the harmful parts. Just a quick look inside a car, an aircraft, or a computer, can show how intricate these machines are. Whether or not it is possible to find a safe replacement for all parts I would doubt.
This is not to say I know a lot about any of these things, because I do not. Perhaps the concepts are beyond me and that their arrival is beyond my lifetime. I cannot be sure of this, but just from my own observations, the complexity of our world means that it will be either impossible to phase out every harmful substance, or it will take an enormous amount of time.