Upcycling

Upcycling, also known as creative reuse, is the process of transforming by-products, waste materials, useless, or unwanted products into new materials or products of better quality or for better environmental value.Upcycling is the opposite of downcycling, which is the other half of the recycling  process. Downcycling involves converting materials and products into new materials of lesser quality. Most recycling involves converting or extracting useful materials from a product and creating a different product or material.

Upcycling is the process of converting old or discarded materials into something useful and often beautiful.Upcycling gives an item a better purpose. And while jimmying the lock on your car to is giving that hanger a new purpose, it’s not necessarily better or more beautiful. And the mangled hanger is likely destined for the trash, which is the opposite intent of upcycling.

When you upcycle an item, you aren’t breaking down the materials. You may be refashioning it like cutting a t-shirt into strips of yarn. but it’s still made of the same materials as when you started. Also, the upcycled item is typically better or the same quality as the original.