Why Recycle when you can Upcycle?

Why Recycle when you can Upcycle?

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Our society is focused on the three pillars of everyday environmentalism: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Countless ad campaigns, public service announcements, and catchy jingles have instilled these values in our heads since we were kids. Let us focus on that last one: Recycle. It can be argued that recycling started the environmentalist movement of the 1980s, forever giving a new meaning to blue trash cans. But what if recycling was not the only alternative to old items? What if there was a solution that would not only prevent the item from going to waste, but also give it a higher value? If we could not only reuse our old goods but re-purpose for a new need, we may be able to reduce the strain on recycling methods are facing.

Upcycling is the process of “taking something old, out of date, or broken and making it into something new, useful, and beautiful” (O’Conner). Frequently, the value of the object will increase after upcycling it. As landfills become overwhelmed by our wasted goods, upcycling becomes a tantalizing alternative. There are varying degrees of upcycling ranging from turning old wrenches into coat hooks all the way toward developing a fully sustainable house.

wrench

Let us think of the Earth as a battery. Currently, we are continuously draining it. The idea of recycling and conserving is to reduce the amount Man drains from that battery on a day to day basis. With upcycling, we could not only reduce our drain of Mother Earth, but charge the battery and have a positive environmental footprint.

Environmentalists seek to put a bandage on the wound we have created for Earth. Upcyclers seek to help the healing process. This is the difference between reducing carbon emissions and eliminating carbon emissions. Why should we be satisfied with having “less bad”(McDonough, Braungart). Upcyclers focus on the question, “what’s next,” for the product. Often times, a recycled good will have a reduced quality compared to the original. Upcycling seeks to create products designed to be useful again and again.

Scraps

Upcycling can be as simple as turning scraps from your shirt into a purse.

UPCYCLING IN WATER CONSERVATION:

Environmentalists say we need to take shorter showers in order to conserve water, making the water situation “less bad.” Upcylers would suggest re-filtering the water and using solar power to heat it. With this method, people could shower ’til their hearts content, while not creating any “bad” for the environment (O’Conner). Is it possible to conserve too much? If people dedicate their lives to not leaving a carbon footprint, is it worth it? Their is a point at which conserving changes our lives too much. Sure, we can do the simple things, turning off the water while we brush our teeth, putting our plastics in the right trash can, but if we have to go a week without showering to conserve water, we are giving up too much. Upcycling could find a comfortable medium between luxury and drawback.

Environmental Words of Upcycling With Chalk Drawing on Blackboard

In the book William McDonough and Michael Braungart published, they detail why upcycling is the future and why we are not there yet. A recurring theme in the book is the concept of design. They assert that if a regulation has been placed on a good, it actually means it should be redesigned. “We don’t have a pollution problem, we have a design problem.” We need to design products that are efficient and waste-free. “Innovation, by definition cannot be compare against existing conditions. It is not merely an improvement on a flawed system. Wikipedia did not compare themselves to Encyclopedia Britannica and say, ‘We will have 200 times as many entries.’ They reinvented the whole notion of an information resource.”(McDonough, Braungart) The authors provide astounding real world examples of upcycling that is succeeding through out the world.

The MorningStar house, located beside the Centre County Visitors Center, has east and west facing solar panels on the ends of the building as well as panels on top of the structure. The south-facing windows have sliding exterior shelving to regulate solar gain.  The solar house was part of a tour of Penn State's alternative energy research projects for international journalists. The full story is at http://live.psu.edu/story

The MorningStar house, located beside the Centre County Visitors Center, has east and west facing solar panels on the ends of the building as well as panels on top of the structure. The south-facing windows have sliding exterior shelving to regulate solar gain. The solar house was part of a tour of Penn State’s alternative energy research projects for international journalists. The full story is at http://live.psu.edu/story

Would you rather have a “sustainable” marriage or a beneficial marriage? This is what we must decide with the Earth. A true innovation of upcycling is taking place in our own backyard. Penn State received grants to fund a sustainability program here on campus. The pinnacle of this program is the MorningStar Solar Home, powered by 100% renewable energy. The moderately sized home has a net-zero footprint and harnesses a variety of renewable energy sources including solar, wind, and geothermal. The home was built in 2007 for a environmental competition in Washington, D.C. But was moved back to PSU where it is constantly being improved. This home represents a possible future for construction in the United States, where we do not need to make cutbacks, just design an efficient home.

We cannot continue our current trajectory of conservation, we must eliminate it all together, allowing us to start healing the Earth. We should forget about reduce, reuse, recycle and instead focus on redesign, renew, and regenerate.

Works Cited:

O’Conner, Carrie. “Recycling vs. Upcycling: What’s the Difference?” Educational Articles and Tips from Postconsumers. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Feb. 2016. <http://www.postconsumers.com/education/recycling-vs-upcycling-whats-the-difference/>.

McDonough, William, and Michael Braungart. The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability – Designing for Abundance. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

Nellemann, Christina. “MorningStar Solar Home.” Tiny House Blog. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Feb. 2016. <http://tinyhouseblog.com/solar/morningstar-solar-home/>.

4 thoughts on “Why Recycle when you can Upcycle?

  1. Hi Cal. As with all of the posts so far, this is a new concept to me. Well, I guess I should say, the term “upcycling” is new to me. I have always enjoyed thinking about the idea of upcycling but never really new it had a specific name. Anyways, as a poor college student I think that the idea of upcycling appeals to me in a way that you did not touch a lot on… money. I frequently, and sometimes without even thinking about it, will upcycle in my daily life so as to save money and resources. Not only is upcycling the better way to recycle, it is also less expensive for everyone! If I were to make a coat rack out of old wrenches, I will have saved the money of buying a new coat rack and I would have saved the cost of recycling these materials at a recycling facility. So, in this sense, its a no brainer, especially because I find things like wrench coat hangers and spoon wind chimes cool and artsy. Also, not only is upcycling cheaper and more sustainable, its also pretty damn fun to totally repurpose a thought-to-be useless item into an old-new functional thing!

    I’m totally grooving on the idea of zero-energy homes right now. In fact, in my edesign 100 class, our big project is designing and modeling a zero energy home. I find it amazing that you can actually make a fully functional building which not only does not use energy from the grid, but instead gives energy back to the to the grid. I was fortunate enough to get a tour of the morningstar home and came to the conclusion that I will own a zero-energy home some day. Not only do zero-erergy homeowners not contribute to our carbon footprint as heavily, they also save a lot of money and even profit from the energy companies paying them for their electricity. On top of the amazingness of zero-energy homes is the fact that they actually aren’t any more expensive in the end as a regular house. This fact alone blows my mind. Why is every house that is built in this day and age not a zero-energy home? I have no idea how to answer this question because it just seems silly to me that were still making non-zero-energy homes. Anyways, here’s a really cool site that gives a wide variety of zero-energy homes across the country:

    http://www.zerohomes.org/existing-zero-energy-homes/

  2. I remember countless school projects in elementary and middle school. I would never run to the store with my parents to buy supplies because I figured we had the materials to create whatever my heart desired within our home. So, occasionally the lonely bottle of whiteout would become white paint…an old pair of pants might add artistic texture…those Popsicle sticks from last year’s poster could construct a Conestoga wagon…etc. I rarely threw away old projects, articles of clothing, or other odd pieces I thought might be useful in the future. I suppose this attitude comes from my Mom, who keeps every potentially useful scrap of wood, old piece of furniture, or other objects she deems “raw materials.” Just over winter break she saw that it was raining outside when she wanted to sit in the hot tub. Rather than buy an umbrella cover, she located an old tarp, a couple of used hooks, string, and pvc piping to fashion an awning over the water. We love to “upcycle,” though I admit the term is new to me!

    Some might call keeping old “garbage” hoarding; however, if it is hoarding, at least it holds environmental and financial value. I love the quote you use, “We don’t have a pollution problem, we have a design problem,” because it shows perspective on the issue of waste. There are other aspects of the environmental movement where this same concept applies. For example, rather than deal with carbon dioxide emissions directly, some favor a geoengineering approach that focuses more on adapting to climate change or reversing the effects of CO2 without actually changing CO2 levels. Upcycling is a different way of doing things with many benefits, which you state. Financially, my family saved loads on our RV trip across the country in 2011 by replacing the RV roof ourselves—again, on my mom’s initiative—with many materials we already owned. The following link lists a few easy uses for everyday items most people fail to think twice about discarding:
    http://www.theleafchronicle.com/story/life/2015/01/27/recycling-upcycling-save-money/22410295/
    Again, I’m sure this seems like a small financial benefit, but imagine how all of the little things could add up in the end. AND imagine the reduced environmental impact if everyone were to participate in such upcycling. Thanks for introducing this term and concept, Cal! Awesome blog post.

  3. This was an awesome read and great topic! I bet a majority of people fall into the mentality of using a product for its intended use. If we go straight to the Law of Conservation of Mass, matter is neither created nor destroyed, the mass of the system (our planet) is constant. I remember back in middle school and high school the “cool” things to have included gum wrapper purses, recycled paper bead bracelets and necklaces, and custom old t-shirt quilts. Your blog actually reminded of these cool quirky things that I forgot were a micro-movement in upcycling.

    With vintage clothing and thrift shops being the new fad, I feel like upcycling will take flight in the next couple of years as people venture out of the mainstream in home decor and fasion. Our society is still fairly young and naïve in the environmental realm. Even with the big environmentalist kick-start in the 1970s, you’re right. Reduce, reuse, and recycle have kind of just been the surface motto. Nobody has ever challenged the idea of using a reusable plastic bottle, and recycling cans, newspaper, the works, but we also haven’t been thinking outside of the box enough with what we can do with things we might initially think have become “useless.”

    Your shift towards a large-scale application of the upcycling method really emphasizes that major resources can be filtered through different mechanisms to power just about anything we use. This leads to the incredible Morningstar Solar Home as well as a less thought about innovation…drum roll please…“toilet-to-tap.” With the major droughts that hit the western part of the U.S., the lack of water has grown into a big water crisis, yet when asked, some people refused to consume water purified from toilets (AFP). This new method, known as “direct potable reuse,” takes the water we’ve used from washing machines and showers, to yes, toilets to undergo a thorough purification process (AFP). Throw in some reverse osmosis and there you have safe drinking water (Woo). Of course, people still hold back at the “yuck factor” of water that once contained excrements and other wastes, but I think this innovation is heading in the right direction that you highlight in the blog. According to BBC, a city could potentially save 60 % water if all of its wastewater was recycled (Woo). I don’t find it particularly disgusting. Would you try toilet-to-tap?

    I like how you redefined the big 3 R’s in a way that brings a more direct message to us, occupiers of this planet (I still believe though that the good ol’ reduce, reuse, recycle shouldn’t just be forgotten, just revamped.) Superb job and thanks for sharing! Now you’ve got me thinking of building a 3D origami swan out of all the paper I’ve printed out from last semester…(green thinking cap on).

    Sources

    AFP. “‘Toilet to Tap’ Gains Appeal in Bone-Dry West : DNews.” DNews. Discovery Communications, 30 Oct. 2015. Web. 10 Feb. 2016. .

    Woo, Marcus. “Why We All Need to Start Drinking Toilet Water.” BBC Future. BBC, 6 Jan. 2016. Web. 10 Feb. 2016. .

  4. Great job, Cal. Your writing and layout are really engaging and you do a terrific job of speaking to the lay person on this subject.

    Keep up the great work!

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