i got to the architecture school at UVa just one year after bill mcdonough (aka "the green dean") stepped down (and the lovely karen vanlangen was stepping up). though no longer part of the faculty, mcdonough made his requisite stops in to the school from time to time, giving special lectures and we all read cradle to cradle. at least once.
so years later, whenever i read articles using one of the "green revolution"'s favorite buzzwords - upcycling! - i tend to cringe. like many words that people are too lazy to truly understand before they just toss it about to sound like they know much more than they do, people misuse the word upcycling all the time. it's normally not in some terrible, awful, misintentioned way and usually they're pretty close - the phrase upcycling seems like you should know what it means - we all grew up learning the virtues of the three R's. but it's important to remember that upcycle is not merely a synonym for recycle. they're both amazingly great practices, but different in their intention and what they accomplish.
upcycling is about raising the use of an item, taking something that was used and about to be disposed and making it inherently more useful or valuable than it was originally intended to be. for example, taking a one-time-use plastic disposable drinking cup and making it into a light fixture would be upcycling. the original life of the cup was about 20 minutes of usefulness. the light not only saves the cup from ending up in a landfill, but makes it more useful than it was. simply using the cup as a cup again would be reusing the cup, and melting it down to form a new plastic cup would be recycling.
there are ways of sprucing up old items to make them look fresh or new again. making a pair of shorts from a pair of jeans isn't so much upcycling as just altering a pair of pants - the shorts aren't more useful than the jeans. the use of the pants barely changed. painting a vintage suitcase may produce beautiful results, but you're hardly making the suitcase more useful - it's still a suitcase (albeit probably a slightly nicer looking one). doing these things is ecologically great because it can cut down on the need for new items, but let's call a spade a spade.
fashioning a lamp from a new box of paper clips (as i found when i was searching for pendant lighting for my studio) is not recycling or upcycling. if you're taking new, unused materials and making something other than its original use with them, i hate to break it to you, but you're not saving the earth. you're being creative (and, in all seriousness, good work for at least that! creativity can be its own reward) but buying something and using it for a single use is not recycling or upcycling.
it's great to consider how your business affects the environment and to make changes accordingly to minimalize your impact. but throwing around buzzwords to impress people when you don't actually know what you're talking about will undoubtedly make you look foolish. do your homework and don't carelessly toss about buzzwords just because they're hot right now. if you've ever described an aspect of your process or small business as "eco friendly" or "upcycled" or if you write a blog or own a store that calls itself off as "green", do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of cradle to cradle right now, and actually read it.
**the photo above is the countertop in the kitchen at my 120 year old rowhouse. it's paperstone, made from 100% post consumer recycled paper in a cold-process resin. this is upcycling at its best (if only it had been locally produced...)
