Recycling and Upcycling

For many of us trying to live "green," recycling is a way of life. It is common to drive down suburban streets on trash day and see paper bags with newspapers and blue recycling bags with plastic and glass bottles, and an assortment of metal cans. All of this is an effort to reduce the amount of materials going to landfills and the amount of natural resources being extracted from the Earth. However, recycling is for the most part really downcycling: The materials made from these items is of lesser quality than the original and will eventually end up being thrown away. This brings up the question, "Where is away?" It becomes obvious that "away" does not really exist.

A new movement is afoot not just to recycle, but rather to upcycle! Upcycling is a process whereby materials that some see as waste are used to produce new products of equal or greater use and value. It is a reinvestment in the environment. Remember those beautiful bags and totes that our knitting ministry made out of old plastic grocery bags? That is an example of upcycling, for the new product was certainly of greater use and value than the original bags and will have a long and extended life, hopefully not ending up in landfills. Another example of large-scale upcycling is a company called A Piece of Cleveland. This organization deconstructs homes and buildings targeted for demolition and upcycles the wood into wonderful new home accessories and furnishings. This wood would normally have ended up in a landfill, but now it has a new valuable use. Instead of going to some big box store for new home furnishings and accessories, check out www.apieceofcleveland.com and become a part of local upcycling.

Upcycling was described by authors William McDonough and Michael Braungart in their book, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. This highly recommended reading can give us a whole new perspective on the design process at work in the world. A basic premise of the book is that most of our industrial revolution has been based on cradle-to-grave process. But, knowing that there is no "away," they propose and cradle-to-cradle process where there really is no such thing as waste. Their ideas take the natural world as a model and encourage us all to live in such a way that is truly ecologically effective.

So, as you continue your efforts to live more lightly on the Earth, remember that the first thing to do is to reduce the amount of energy and materials that you use; reuse as many items as you can so they don't go to that fictional place called "away;" recycle all that you can to keep natural resources in the cycle of use; and now become a part of upcycling!

—Richard A. Horton, chair, Trinity Green Team