![Cans repurposed as a chair in Brazil](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Cans_repurposed_as_a_chair_in_Brazil.jpg)
Upcycling, also known as creative reuse, is the process of transforming by-products,
waste
Waste (or wastes) are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor economic value. A waste prod ...
materials, useless, or unwanted products into new materials or products perceived to be of greater quality, such as
artistic value or
environmental value.
Description
Upcycling is the opposite of
downcycling
Downcycling, or cascading, is the recycling of waste where the recycled material is of lower quality and functionality than the original material. Often, this is due to the accumulation of tramp elements in secondary metals, which may exclude the ...
, which is the other part of the
recycling
Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the p ...
process. Downcycling involves converting materials and products into new materials, sometimes of lesser quality. Most recycling involves converting or extracting useful materials from a product and creating a different product or material.
![Upcycled Cutting Board](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Upcycled_Cutting_Board.jpg)
![Kładka z łopaty turbiny wiatrowej w Szprotawie](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/K%C5%82adka_z_%C5%82opaty_turbiny_wiatrowej_w_Szprotawie.jpg)
The terms upcycling and ''downcycling'' were first used in print in an article in SalvoNEWS by Thornton Kay quoting Reiner Pilz and published in 1994.
''Upsizing'' was the title of the
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
edition of a book about upcycling first published in
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
in 1998 by
Gunter Pauli
Gunter Pauli is an entrepreneur, economist, and author born in 1956 in Antwerp (Belgium). He is best known for his main work, '' The Blue Economy''.
He has lived on 4 continents, is fluent in 7 languages, is a resident of Japan since 1994 and s ...
and given the revised title of ''Upcycling'' in 1999. The German edition was adapted to the German language and culture by Johannes F. Hartkemeyer, then Director of the
Volkshochschule
Folk high schools (also ''Adult Education Center'', Danish: ''Folkehøjskole;'' Dutch: ''Volkshogeschool;'' Finnish: ''kansanopisto'' and ''työväenopisto'' or ''kansalaisopisto;'' German: ''Volkshochschule'' and (a few) ''Heimvolkshochschule;'' ...
in
Osnabrück
Osnabrück (; wep, Ossenbrügge; archaic ''Osnaburg'') is a city in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is situated on the river Hase in a valley penned between the Wiehen Hills and the northern tip of the Teutoburg Forest. With a population ...
. The concept was later incorporated by
William McDonough
William Andrews McDonough is an American architect, designer, and author. McDonough is founding principal of William McDonough + Partners, co-founder of McDonough MBDC, and co-author of ''Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things'' a ...
and
Michael Braungart
Michael Braungart (born 1958) is a German chemist who advocates that humans can make a positive instead of a negative environmental impact by redesigning industrial production and therefore that dissipation is not waste. A former Greenpeace activ ...
in their 2002 book ''
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things''. They state that the goal of upcycling is to prevent wasting potentially useful materials by making use of existing ones. This reduces the consumption of new
raw materials
A raw material, also known as a feedstock, unprocessed material, or primary commodity, is a basic material that is used to produce goods, finished goods, energy, or intermediate materials that are feedstock for future finished products. As feedst ...
when creating new products. Reducing the use of new raw materials can result in a reduction of
energy usage
Energy consumption is the amount of energy used.
Biology
In the body, energy consumption is part of energy homeostasis. It derived from food energy. Energy consumption in the body is a product of the basal metabolic rate and the physical activit ...
,
air pollution
Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different types ...
,
water pollution
Water pollution (or aquatic pollution) is the contamination of water bodies, usually as a result of human activities, so that it negatively affects its uses. Water bodies include lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers, reservoirs and groundwater. Water ...
and even
greenhouse gas emissions
Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and lar ...
.
This is a significant step towards regenerative design culture where the end products are cleaner, healthier, and usually have a better value than the material inputs. For example, during the recycling process of plastics other than those used to create bottles, many different types of plastics are mixed, resulting in a hybrid. This hybrid is used in the manufacturing of plastic lumber applications. However, unlike the engineered
polymer
A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part")
is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic a ...
ABS which hold properties of several plastics well, recycled plastics suffer
phase-separation that causes structural weakness in the final product.
In 2009, Belinda Smith from Reuters wrote that upcycling had increased in the rich countries but observed that upcycling was a necessity in poorer ones:
Supporters of the environmentally friendly
Environment friendly processes, or environmental-friendly processes (also referred to as eco-friendly, nature-friendly, and green), are sustainability and marketing terms referring to goods and services, laws, guidelines and policies that clai ...
practice of upcycling say people in developing countries have effectively been upcycling for years, using old packaging and clothing in new ways, although more out of need than for the environment. But upcycling is now taking off in other countries, reflecting an increased interest in eco-friendly products
Sustainability, Sustainable products are those products that provide environmental, social and economic benefits while protecting public health and Natural environment, environment over their whole life cycle, from the extraction of raw materials ...
, particularly ones that are priced at an affordable level and proving profitable for the manufacturers. "If upcycling is going to become mainstream, then the corporate world needs to see that it can be profitable," said Albe Zakes, spokesman of U.S. company TerraCycle which specializes in finding new uses for discarded packaging. A growing number of companies are focusing on upcycling although the trend is still in its infancy with industry-wide figures yet to be produced.
Upcycling has shown significant growth across the United States and the World. For example, the number of products on
Etsy
Etsy, Inc. is an American e-commerce company focused on handmade or vintage items and craft supplies. These items fall under a wide range of categories, including jewelry, bags, clothing, home décor and furniture, toys, art, as well as craft ...
,
Pinterest
Pinterest is an American image sharing and social media service designed to enable saving and discovery of information (specifically "ideas") on the internet using images, and on a smaller scale, animated GIFs and videos, in the form of pinboard ...
or
Upcycle Studio
Upcycling, also known as creative reuse, is the process of transforming by-products, waste materials, useless, or unwanted products into new materials or products perceived to be of greater quality, such as artistic value or environmental value ...
tagged with the word "upcycled" increased from about 7,900 in January 2010 to nearly 30,000 a year later .
, that number stood at 263,685
Material
downcycling
Downcycling, or cascading, is the recycling of waste where the recycled material is of lower quality and functionality than the original material. Often, this is due to the accumulation of tramp elements in secondary metals, which may exclude the ...
occurs when it is either not possible or uneconomic to restore materials to their original quality, for example, when wrought
aluminium alloys
An aluminium alloy (or aluminum alloy; see spelling differences) is an alloy in which aluminium (Al) is the predominant metal. The typical alloying elements are copper, magnesium, manganese, silicon, tin, nickel and zinc. There are two princip ...
are melted to produce lower-grade casting alloys.
Material ''upcycling'', in the
thermodynamic
Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of ther ...
sense, is only possible if even more energy is added to upgrade the material quality.
Two guiding questions to ask when assessing recovering for waste materials or products are: How much energy is required to restore the recovered material back to the desired material or product?, and, How does this quantity compare with obtaining the desired material or product from virgin or primary sources? In some cases, little energy is required to reuse a discarded product, for example,
secondhand clothing. In other cases, the energy required to recover the materials is more than the energy required to process virgin material.
Applications
Art
![Vorwarts! (Go Forward!), 1897 F](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Vorwarts%21_%28Go_Forward%21%29%2C_1897_F.jpg)
Upcycle Art or sometimes known as Recycled Art or Recycl’Art is the transformation of waste or used materials and objects into art pieces.
While recycle usually means the materials are remade into their originally form e.g. recycle plastic bottles into plastic polymers which then produce plastic bottles through manufacturing process, upcycle adds more value to the materials as the name suggested. According to Watson & Wolfe "Upcycling, also known as creative reuse, is the process of transforming by-products, waste materials, useless, or unwanted products into new materials or products perceived to be of greater quality, such as artistic value or environmental value."
Similarly recycle art may refer to art pieces using used materials in their original form while upcycle art may involve transformation process such as breaking down, reforming, reassemble and the likes.
The tradition of reusing
found objects (''objet trouvé'') in mainstream art came of age sporadically through the 20th century, although it has long been a means of production in
folk art
Folk art covers all forms of visual art made in the context of folk culture. Definitions vary, but generally the objects have practical utility of some kind, rather than being exclusively decorative art, decorative. The makers of folk art a ...
. The
Amish
The Amish (; pdc, Amisch; german: link=no, Amische), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptist Christian church fellowships with Swiss German and Alsatian origins. They are closely related to Mennonite churches ...
quilt
A quilt is a multi-layered textile, traditionally composed of two or more layers of fabric or fiber. Commonly three layers are used with a filler material. These layers traditionally include a woven cloth top, a layer of batting or wadding, a ...
, for example, came about through reapplication of salvaged fabric.
Simon Rodia
The Watts Towers, Towers of Simon Rodia, or ''Nuestro Pueblo'' ("our town" in Spanish) are a collection of 17 interconnected sculptural towers, architectural structures, and individual sculptural features and mosaics within the site of the artis ...
's
Watts Towers
The Watts Towers, Towers of Simon Rodia, or ''Nuestro Pueblo'' ("our town" in Spanish) are a collection of 17 interconnected sculptural towers, architectural structures, and individual sculptural features and mosaics within the site of the artis ...
(1921–1954) in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
exemplifies upcycling of scrap metal, pottery and broken glass on a grand scale; it consists of 17 structures, the tallest reaching over 30 meters into the
Watts
Watts is plural for ''watt'', the unit of power.
Watts may also refer to:
People
*Watts (surname), list of people with the surname Watts Fictional characters
*Watts, main character in the film '' Some Kind of Wonderful''
*Watts family, six chara ...
skyline.
Intellectually, upcycling bears some resemblance to the
ready-made art of
Marcel Duchamp
Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
and the
Dadaists
Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Pari ...
. Duchamp's "
Bicycle Wheel
A bicycle wheel is a wheel, most commonly a wire wheel, designed for a bicycle. A pair is often called a wheelset, especially in the context of ready built "off the shelf" performance-oriented wheels.
Bicycle wheels are typically designed ...
" (1913), a front wheel and fork attached to a common stool, is among the earliest of these works, while "
Fountain
A fountain, from the Latin "fons" (genitive "fontis"), meaning source or Spring (hydrology), spring, is a decorative reservoir used for discharging water. It is also a structure that jets water into the air for a decorative or dramatic effect. ...
" (1917), a common urinal purchased at a hardware store, is arguably his best-known work. Pablo Picasso's "
Bull's Head
''Bull's Head'' (french: Tête de taureau) is a found object artwork by Pablo Picasso, created in 1942 from the seat and handlebars of a bicycle. It is described by Roland Penrose as Picasso's most famous discovery, a simple yet "astonishingly c ...
" (1942), a sculpture made from a discarded bicycle saddle and handlebars, is the Spanish painter's sly nod to the Dadaists. Throughout the mid-century, the artist
Joseph Cornell
Joseph Cornell (December 24, 1903 – December 29, 1972) was an American visual artist and film-maker, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of Assemblage (art), assemblage. Influenced by the Surrealists, he was also an avant-garde e ...
fabricated collages and boxed
assemblage works from old books, found objects and
ephemera
Ephemera are transitory creations which are not meant to be retained or preserved. Its etymological origins extends to Ancient Greece, with the common definition of the word being: "the minor transient documents of everyday life". Ambiguous in ...
.
Robert Rauschenberg
Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...
collected trash and disused objects, first in Morocco and later on the streets of New York, to incorporate into his art works.
The idea of consciously raising the inherent value of recycled objects as a political statement, however, rather than presenting recycled objects as a reflection or outcome from the means of production, is largely a late 20th-century concept.
Romuald Hazoumé, an artist from the
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Maurit ...
n
Bénin, was heralded in 2007 for his use of discarded plastic gasoline and fuel canisters to resemble traditional African masks at
Documenta
''documenta'' is an exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany.
The ''documenta'' was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau (Federal Horticultura ...
12 in
Kassel
Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
. Hazoumé has said of these works, "I send back to the West that which belongs to them, that is to say, the refuse of consumer society that invades us every day."
Jeff Wassmann, an American artist who has lived in Australia for the past 25 years, uses items found on beaches and junk stores in his travels to create the early Modern works of a fictional German relative,
Johann Dieter Wassmann (1841–1898). In ''Vorwarts (Go Forward)'' (pictured), Wassmann uses four simple objects to depict a vision of modern man on the precarious eave of the 20th century: an early optometry chart as background, a
clock spring as eye, a 19th-century Chinese bone opium spoon from the Australian gold fields as nose and an upper set of
dentures
Dentures (also known as false teeth) are prosthetic devices constructed to replace missing teeth, and are supported by the surrounding soft and hard tissues of the oral cavity. Conventional dentures are removable (removable partial denture or ...
found on an Australian beach as mouth. Wassmann is unusual among artists in that he does not sell his work, rather they are presented as gifts; by not allowing these works to re-enter the consumer cycle, he averts the
commodification
Within a capitalist economic system, commodification is the transformation of things such as goods, services, ideas, nature, personal information, people or animals into objects of trade or commodities.For animals"United Nations Commodity Trad ...
of his end product.
Max Zorn
Max August Zorn (; June 6, 1906 – March 9, 1993) was a German mathematician. He was an algebraist, group theorist, and numerical analyst. He is best known for Zorn's lemma, a method used in set theory that is applicable to a wide range of ...
is a Dutch tape artist who creates artwork from ordinary brown packaging tape and hangs pieces on street lamps as a new form of
street art
Street art is visual art created in public locations for public visibility. It has been associated with the terms "independent art", "post-graffiti", "neo-graffiti" and guerrilla art.
Street art has evolved from the early forms of defiant graff ...
at night. By adding and subtracting layers of tape on
acrylic glass
Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) belongs to a group of materials called engineering plastics. It is a transparent thermoplastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and brands Crylux, Plexiglas, Acrylite, ...
with a surgical scalpel, the artwork can only be visible when light is placed behind it, mimicking the effects similar to
stained glass
Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...
window methods. His technique with pioneering upcycling with street art has been featured at
Frei-Cycle 2013, the first design fair for recycling and upcycling in
Freiburg
Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...
, Germany.
Music
A prominent example is the
Recycled Orchestra of Cateura in
Paraguay
Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...
. The instruments of the orchestra are made from materials taken from the landfill of
Asunción
Asunción (, , , Guarani: Paraguay) is the capital and the largest city of Paraguay.
The city stands on the eastern bank of the Paraguay River, almost at the confluence of this river with the Pilcomayo River. The Paraguay River and the Bay of ...
, whose name comes from the
Cateura lagoon in the area. A limited part of its real history is narrated in the film ''
Landfill Harmonic
''Landfill Harmonic'' (stylized as ''landillharmonic'') is a 2015 documentary film directed by Brad Allgood and Graham Townsley. It stars and tells the story of Paraguayan music teacher Favio Chavez and his Recycled Orchestra of Cateura, a childre ...
''.
Industry
Many industrial processes, like plastic, paint, and electronic fabrication, rely on the consumption of
finite resources.
[Martin, M. and Parsapour, A. 2012. "Upcycling wastes with biogas production: An exergy and economic analysis". Venice 2012: International Symposium on Energy from Biomass and Waste (2012).][Zhuo, C. and Levendis, Y. A. 2014. "Upcycling waste plastics into carbon nanomaterials: A review". ''Journal of Applied Polymer Science''. 131, 4 (2014)] Furthermore, the waste may have an environmental impact and can affect human health.
Within this context, upcycling describes the use of available and future technologies to reduce waste and
resource consumption Resource consumption is about the consumption of non-renewable, or less often, renewable resources. Specifically, it may refer to:
* water consumption
* energy consumption
** electric energy consumption
** world energy consumption
* natural gas c ...
by creating a product with a higher value from waste or byproduct streams.
In consumer electronics, the process of re-manufacturing or
refurbishment
Refurbishment may refer to:
*Refurbishment (electronics)
*Antiques restoration
*Automotive restoration
See also
*Conservation and restoration of immovable cultural property
*Reconstruction (architecture)
* Remanufacturing
*Renovation
Ren ...
of second-hand products can be seen as upcycling because of the reduced energy and material consumption in contrast to new manufacturing. The re-manufactured product has a higher value than disposing or downcycling it.
[Steinhilper, R. and Hieber, M. 2001. "Remanufacturing-the key solution for transforming downcycling into upcycling of electronics". ''Electronics and the Environment'', 2001. Proceedings of the 2001 IEEE International Symposium on (2001), 161–166.] The use of
Brewer's spent grain
Brewer's spent grain (BSG) or draff is a food waste that is a byproduct of the brewing industry that makes up 85 percent of brewing waste. BSG is obtained as a mostly solid residue after wort production in the brewing process. The product is ...
, a waste product of
brewing
Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains, the most popular of which is barley) in water and #Fermenting, fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with Yeast#Beer, yeast. It may be done in a brewery ...
processes, as a
substrate in
biogas
Biogas is a mixture of gases, primarily consisting of methane, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide, produced from raw materials such as agricultural waste, manure, municipal waste, plant material, sewage, green waste and food waste. It is a ...
processes eliminates the need for disposal and can generate significant profit to the overall brewing process. Depending on the substrate's price, a profit of approximately 20% of the operational costs is possible. In this process, the
biogas plant
Biogas is a mixture of gases, primarily consisting of methane, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide, produced from raw materials such as agricultural waste, manure, municipal waste, plant material, sewage, green waste and food waste. It is a r ...
acts as an "upcycler".
Clothes
Designers have begun to use both industrial textile waste and existing clothing like as the base material for creating new fashions. Upcycling has been known to use either pre-consumer or post-consumer waste or possibly a combination of the two. Pre-consumer waste is made while in the factory, such as fabric remnants left over from cutting out patterns. Post-consumer waste refers to the finished product when it’s no longer useful to the owner, such as donated clothes. Textile upcycling has an official certification process called UPMADE®. Fashion designers such as Ksenia Schnaider and Reet Aus have applied upcycling philosophy by designing entire collections from scraps.
Often, people practice linear economy where they are content to buy, use, then throw away. This system contributes to millions of kilos of textile waste being thrown away. While most textiles produced are recyclable, around 85% end-up in landfills in the USA alone. To live a sustainable life, clothing options opposite to the "throw away" attitude encouraged by
fast fashion are needed. Upcycling can help with this, as it puts into practice a more
circular economy
A circular economy (also referred to as circularity and CE) is a model of production and consumption, which involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible. CE aims ...
model. A Circular Economy is where resources are used for as long as possible, getting the most value out of them while in use, then restored and repurposed when their use is over. Popularized by McDonough and Braungart, this has also been known as the ''cradle-to-cradle'' principle. This principle states a product should be designed either to have multiple life cycles or be biodegradable.
Food
Billions of pounds of food are wasted every year around the world, but there are ways that people reuse food and find a way to upcycle. One common method is to feed it to animals because many animals, such as pigs, will eat all the scraps given. Food waste can be donated and restaurants can save all the food customers don't eat. Donations can also be made by contacting local agricultural extension offices to find out where to donate food waste and how often and how much one can donate.
Another form of upcycling food is to break it down and use it as energy. Engineers have found a way to break the food down into a reusable bio-fuel by pressure cooking it and then they are able to make methane out of the remains which can be used to produce electricity and heat. When the food isn't used in those ways, another way is to just break it down and use it in compost, which will improve the soil. Many types of food waste, such as fruits, vegetables, egg shells, nuts, and nut shells, can be used in compost to enrich soil. A 2019-founded non-profit, The Upcycled Food Association, established certification standards and a logo that allows consumers to be confident of the upcycled food being consumed.
Whole Foods
Whole Foods Market IP, Inc., a subsidiary of Amazon, is an upscale American multinational supermarket chain headquartered in Austin, Texas, which sells products free from hydrogenated fats and artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives. A USDA ...
named upcycling one of the ten food trends of 2021.
Design processes
Tonnes of wastes are produced every day in our cities, and some educators are attempting to raise citizens' awareness, especially the youth. To redefine the concept of recycling previously confined to trash categorization, groups of young designers have attempted to transform "trash" into potentially marketable products such as backpacks made of waste plastic bags and area rugs created by reusing hides. One relevant book published by Community Museum Project in
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
in 2010, was the first experiment on upcycling systems design. Spanning across material collecting, upcycling design, local production and public dissemination, it provides proposals towards a sustainable system that will cast impact on our strategies of waste handling and energy saving.
Hong Kong local inventor
Gary Chan
Gary Chan Hak-kan, BBS, JP (born 24 April 1976) is a current member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. He represents the New Territories North East constituency and is a member of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progre ...
is actively involved in designing and making 'upcycling' bikes by making use of waste materials as parts for his bikes. He invented at least 8 bikes using wastes as a majority of the materials. Gary and his partners at Wheel Thing Makers regularly collect useful wastes such as leather skin from sofas, hardwood plates of wardrobes, or rubber tires from vehicle repair stores in the waste collection station on streets.
Potential technologies
The worldwide plastic production was 280 million tons in 2011 and production levels are growing every year. Its haphazard disposal causes severe environmental damage, such as the creation of the
Great Pacific garbage patch.
In 2018, global annual plastic consumption grew to over 320 million tons. In order to solve this problem, the employment of modern technologies and processes to reuse the waste plastic as a cheap substrate is under research. The goal is to bring this material from the waste stream back into the mainstream by developing processes, which will create an economic demand for them.
One approach in the field involves the conversion of waste plastics (like
LDPE
Low-density polyethylene (LDPE) is a thermoplastic made from the monomer ethylene. It was the first grade of polyethylene, produced in 1933 by Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) using a high pressure process via free radical polymerization. Its ...
,
PET
A pet, or companion animal, is an animal kept primarily for a person's company or entertainment rather than as a working animal, livestock, or a laboratory animal. Popular pets are often considered to have attractive appearances, intelligence, ...
, and
HDPE
High-density polyethylene (HDPE) or polyethylene high-density (PEHD) is a thermoplastic polymer produced from the monomer ethylene. It is sometimes called "alkathene" or "polythene" when used for HDPE pipes. With a high strength-to-density ratio, ...
) into
paramagnetic
Paramagnetism is a form of magnetism whereby some materials are weakly attracted by an externally applied magnetic field, and form internal, induced magnetic fields in the direction of the applied magnetic field. In contrast with this behavior, d ...
, conducting microspheres
[Mondal, M., Gohs, U., Wagenknecht, U. and Heinrich, G. 2013. "Polypropylene/natural rubber thermoplastic vulcanizates by eco-friendly and sustainable electron induced reactive processing". ''Radiation Physics and Chemistry''. 88, 0 (2013), 74–81.] or into carbon nano-materials by applying high temperatures and
chemical vapor deposition
Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is a vacuum deposition method used to produce high quality, and high-performance, solid materials. The process is often used in the semiconductor industry to produce thin films.
In typical CVD, the wafer (substra ...
. On a molecular level, the treatment of
polymers
A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part")
is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic an ...
like
polypropylene
Polypropylene (PP), also known as polypropene, is a thermoplastic polymer used in a wide variety of applications. It is produced via chain-growth polymerization from the monomer propylene.
Polypropylene
belongs to the group of polyolefins and ...
or
thermoplastics
A thermoplastic, or thermosoft plastic, is any plastic polymer material that becomes pliable or moldable at a certain elevated temperature and solidifies upon cooling.
Most thermoplastics have a high molecular weight. The polymer chains associate ...
with
electron beam
Cathode rays or electron beam (e-beam) are streams of electrons observed in discharge tubes. If an evacuated glass tube is equipped with two electrodes and a voltage is applied, glass behind the positive electrode is observed to glow, due to ele ...
s (doses around 150
kGy) can increase material properties like
bending strength and
elasticity and provides an eco-friendly and
sustainable
Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livin ...
way to upcycle them.
Active research is being carried out for the
biotransformation Biotransformation is the biochemical modification of one chemical compound or a mixture of chemical compounds. Biotransformations can be conducted with whole cells, their lysates, or purified enzymes. Increasingly, biotransformations are effected w ...
upcycling of plastic waste (e.g.,
polyethylene terephthalate
Polyethylene terephthalate (or poly(ethylene terephthalate), PET, PETE, or the obsolete PETP or PET-P), is the most common thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family and is used in fibres for clothing, containers for liquids and foods ...
and
polyurethane
Polyurethane (; often abbreviated PUR and PU) refers to a class of polymers composed of organic chemistry, organic units joined by carbamate (urethane) links. In contrast to other common polymers such as polyethylene and polystyrene, polyurethan ...
) into
PHA bioplastic
Bioplastics are plastic materials produced from renewable biomass sources, such as vegetable fats and oils, corn starch, straw, woodchips, sawdust, recycled food waste, etc. Some bioplastics are obtained by processing directly from natural bi ...
using bacteria. PET could be converted into the biodegradable
PHA by using a combination of temperature and microbial treatment. First it gets
pyrolized at 450 °C and the resulting
terephthalic acid is used as a substrate for microorganisms, which convert it finally into PHA. Similar to the aforementioned approach is the combination of nano-materials like carbon nanotubes with powdered orange peel as a composite material. This might be used to remove synthetic
dyes from
wastewater
Wastewater is water generated after the use of freshwater, raw water, drinking water or saline water in a variety of deliberate applications or processes. Another definition of wastewater is "Used water from any combination of domestic, industr ...
.
Biotechnology
Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used b ...
companies have recently shifted focus towards the conversion of agricultural waste, or
biomass
Biomass is plant-based material used as a fuel for heat or electricity production. It can be in the form of wood, wood residues, energy crops, agricultural residues, and waste from industry, farms, and households. Some people use the terms bi ...
, to different chemicals or commodities. One company in particular,
BioTork
BioTork is a biotechnology company founded in 2008 that specializes in the optimization of industrial fermentation processes. BioTork provides robust microorganisms that are able to convert low-value, raw carbon sources such as agroindustrial by ...
, has signed an agreement with the State of Hawaii and the
USDA
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of com ...
to convert the unmarketable papayas in Hawaii into
fish feed
Manufactured feeds are an important part of modern commercial aquaculture, providing the balanced nutrition needed by farmed fish. The feeds, in the form of granules or pellets, provide the nutrition in a stable and concentrated form, enabling t ...
. As part of this Zero Waste Initiative put forth by the State of Hawaii, BioTork will upcycle the otherwise wasted biomass into fish feed.
See also
*
Environmentalism
Environmentalism or environmental rights is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seek ...
*
Food rescue
Food rescue, also called food recovery, food salvage or surplus food redistribution, is the practice of gleaning edible food that would otherwise go to waste from places such as farms, produce markets, grocery stores, restaurants, or dining facilit ...
*
Reuse
Reuse is the action or practice of using an item, whether for its original purpose (conventional reuse) or to fulfill a different function ( creative reuse or repurposing). It should be distinguished from recycling, which is the breaking down of u ...
*
Scrapstore
*
Trashion
Trashion (a portmanteau of ''trash'' and ''fashion'') is a term for art, jewellery, fashion and objects for the home created from used, thrown-out, found and repurposed elements. The term was first coined in New Zealand in 2004 and gained in usag ...
*
Waste hierarchy
Waste hierarchy is a tool used in the evaluation of processes that protect the environment alongside resource and energy consumption from most favourable to least favourable actions. The hierarchy establishes preferred program priorities based ...
References
External links
{{Sharing economy
Culture and the environment
Handicrafts
Recycling
Reuse