preview

The Pros And Cons Of Upcycling

Decent Essays

2.1.1 Individual Upcycling “People have been upcycling for as long as new objects have broken or recently gone out of fashion.” Though the term itself just got popular in recent years, it has existed for thousands of years as an individual practice of converting waste or used objects into higher value/quality objects. Szaky explains that reuse and upcycling were common practices around the world before the Industrial Revolution and are now more common in developing countries due to limited resources.” (Sung, 2015) Upcycling products at home can be as simple as reusing empty bottles and jars to re-painting old furniture. Doing it at home is more environmentally friendly than having an upcycling company do it because you avoid the environmental impacts that come with transporting waste to the upcycling company and then transporting the upcycled product back to you. The increased awareness of …show more content…

These materials are manipulated and transformed into works of art that are extraordinary. 2.1.2 Commercial Upcycling Upcycling is not limited to individual practice, it can also be brought at workplace like making use of old doors as partitions and tables. Terra Cycle, a company based in U.S., made use of upcycled materials in their entire office and was even called as the “coolest office” in the world by the New York Times. (T. Szaky, 2015) In an article entitled “Waste Not” by Jeremy Lehrer in October 2010, co-founder and director of Elvis and Kresse London, Kresse Wesling, shared how they create their products. “What I focus on are patterns in the waste. We don’t collect waste from a landfill site. We find out who’s making it, and then we get it from them. Because once you’ve allowed it to go to a landfill, the value is lost. We reverse engineer. Our design is always led by the raw materials that we fall in love with, rather than design for design

Get Access