Upcycling

             The limitation of some forms of recycling is that they reduce the already low value of the basic material. Expensive bricks end up as cheap aggregate that is used in the foundation of buildings and highways. Soda cans are flattened into sheets of aluminium that cost, ton for ton, less than the original drinks containers.

            Many people believe that conservationists should set their sights higher than this. Instead of breaking up hardwood taken from refurbished buildings and reselling it as cheap firewood, environmentalists should mill it into flooring planks and thus increase its value.

           This is not a new idea: laptop cases are made from old wetsuits; broken piano keys are turned into jewelry. However, the concept had no name untill 1994, when Reiner Pilz, whose German company manufactures electronic safety equipment for industrial machinery, remarked in an interview that "recycling" would be better termed "downcycling". "What we need" Pilz added, "Is upcycling, where old products are given more value, not less."

            Pilz's label stuck and was given wider currency by its use in books including Upcycling (1999) by Gunder Pauli and Johannes F.Hartmeyer and Cradle to Cradle: Remarking the Way We Make Things (2002) by Michael Braungart and William McDonough. The latter book also highlighted the ways in which reduction in the use of new raw materials can cause a corresponding decrease in energy usage, air and water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

           Once identifiable, the upcycling process become easier to promote. Upcycling first caught on in developing countries that could least afford new materials, but the new approach soon came came westward. In 2010, Etsy, a U.S. e-commerce website selling handmade artifacts, offered just under 8000 upcycled products; less than two years later, the number of products exceeded 1,50,000.