Word of the day: upcycling.

What does it mean for the way we think about our trash?

Originally coined by Michael Braungart and William McDonough, authors of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, upcycling is the liberation of discarded materials to create something completely new and beneficial.  It differs from recycling in that the material doesn’t need to go through any extra steps to begin it’s new life as something else.

Take a sheet of hard industrial plastic, for example.  To recycle it, the type of plastic must be identified, sorted, cleaned, and reformed using a slew of chemical processes.  The same sheet can instead be upcycled and used with little or no modification to become the surface of a picnic table or other useful permanent object.  Upcycling gives meaning to the hands-on reuse of materials in their original state without the mystery of the hands-off method of recycling.

For some ways to try upcycling for yourself, check out these links!

Upcycle Art

Upcycling Old Clothes

Upcycled Furniture

Photo by Enno de Kroon.

The International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) has been raging for the past 5 days or so. Hundreds of exhibitors from students to the world’s top designers packed into the Brutalist setting at the Jacob Javitz Center in Manhattan to show off their fabulous furnishings.

With reclaimed objects and materials the pervasive medium for the most modern creations, it was clear that our living environment seeks to mimic our natural environment (even if it’s a garbage dump). The desire for these products has resulted in a market-wide pandemonium and manufacturers are starting to find ways to make products that are comfortable, nice to look at, and comprised of stuff that won’t destroy us in the not-too-distant future.

I’ll defer to the friendly ModernUrbanLiving.com experts for the front line take on this year’s eco-tastic event.