{"id":345,"date":"2010-06-18T20:08:16","date_gmt":"2010-06-19T00:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/simplelifecorp.com\/simplelifeblog\/?p=345"},"modified":"2010-06-18T22:41:14","modified_gmt":"2010-06-19T02:41:14","slug":"upcycling-is-a-new-word-but-the-concept-is-timeless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/simplelifecorp.com\/simplelifeblog\/2010\/06\/upcycling-is-a-new-word-but-the-concept-is-timeless\/","title":{"rendered":"Upcycling is a New Word- the Concept is Not"},"content":{"rendered":"

Upcycling has become a hot new term. Never heard of it? You probably won’t find it in the dictionary. The term was apparently first phrased in 1994 by Reiner Pilz, but did not surface again until William McDonough and Michael Braungart used the term in their book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We make Things<\/a>. <\/em>(Amazon associates link to the book.)\u00a0 They define upcycling as taking materials that have little current use or might otherwise be discarded and using those materials to create something that increases the value of the materials.<\/p>\n

Huh? Isn’t that like recycling?\u00a0 No, not exactly.\u00a0 Recycling will usually take a material and process it to be used as a component or ingredient in creating another material.\u00a0\u00a0 In general the value after recycling would be decreased or at least not increased.<\/p>\n

Upcycling takes the discarded material and uses it to create something better.\u00a0 You’ve probably done it many times.\u00a0\u00a0 Here are some examples to give you some upcycling ideas:<\/p>\n