Here are some Recycling Tips and Sustainability ideas
Recycling, downcycling and upcycling! What do they all mean?
No, it’s nothing to do with bikes (not quite true, bikes can be recycled too); they are all words used in recycling your waste products. – I think there is a pun in there somewhere, unintended.
Read this report for the full picture, it’s quite fascinating, really!
Recycling
Recycling Tips of the Month
Recycling is Great But Upcycling is Even Better
You know what recycling is, but have you ever heard of downcycling?
No? Don’t worry, that’s a trick question.
Downcycling is just another name for recycling, taking used materials and products out of the waste stream and converting them into new materials. The “down-” prefix is used sometimes just to make the point that many recycled products are of lesser quality than the original.
A Better Way – recycling tips
This brings us to upcycling, which is exactly the opposite.
Upcycling is the process of converting waste into new materials or products of better quality.As most of us work hard to reduce the amount of waste we create, it should be no surprise that upcycling has shown significant growth across the United States.
Recycling truck, China.
By Paul Louis (Own work) CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Upcycling is all around us.
One way to see the numbers is to take a look at www.Etsy.com, the site where artists and artisans can sell their handmade goods.Etsy offers a mind-boggling variety of imaginative, beautiful and sometimes downright weird items.
Major Retailers Are on Board
Many outdoor companies, including REI, The North Face, Marmot and Patagonia, work hard to reduce their environmental impact.Many of them sell fleece products made from recycled plastic bottles. (Why not? Fleece is made from polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, which is the same plastic from which the bottles are commonly made.)
A completely different kind of retailer, the French luxury-goods firm Hermès, also upcycles.
They use leftover material and damaged goods for a new line of specialty items.
For example, drawers are upholstered with damaged scarves, a defective handbag is turned into a clock and a flawed glass vase is cut in half to become a set of bookends.
The “Amazing” Possibilities of Upcycling
The biggest upcycler in the world is TerraCycle, (www.terracycle.com) which creates national recycling systems for previously non-recyclable or hard-to-recycle waste.They convert the collected waste into a wide variety of products and materials. For example, they are devising ways to make textiles and plastic lumber from Capri Sun drink pouches, jackets from Doritos bags and luggage from energy bar wrappers.
When it comes to collecting recyclable and upcyclable materials, the business opportunities are “amazing,” said Gal Raz, associate professor at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.
More at… The Examiner
Recycling tips and sustainability, what are your thoughts on the subject, do you have some amazing recycling tips you would like to share with our readers, if so please leave them in the comment section below and remember to click the share button, many thanks.
