I’ve been reading alot lately about Recycling because my neighbourhood wants to go “green” etc. Lately Upcycling has also been mentioned alot and i know that Upcycling is more of a direct process than Recycling since i can just do upcycling from home. But which one’s actually better for the environment? Sorry, i hope my question is somewhat clear!
Thank you guys
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Upcycling is making something “better” out of trash, its increasing the quality.
A lot of recycling is actualy downcycling, so making worse stuff out of it. Like old paper trash can not be used to make new printing paper but only toilet paper.
Ofc this value is subjective, so what someone thinks is upcycling might be trash for other people.
I understand “upcycling” as finding another use for an item while mostly retaining its present form, such as cleaning out a container to store other things in it or making a flower pot out of it. This is good if the new item really has a practical value and can take the place of another that is purpose built. Often upcycling are art projects without value however.
Recycling involves melting or chopping an object down into one or more of its base materials, which is more technologically involved process. The materials obtained are usually of inferior quality because different kinds can’t be fully separated.
Neither is really better or worse, mostly because “upcycling” is not a clearly defined term. It refers simply to reusing unwanted/discarded/junk materials of any type to create an object of higher value or quality than the individual materials. So, it could be as simple as taking something like an old tired (worthless junk) and turning it into a tire swing that will entertain loads of kids at the local playground. Or, it could be taking 500 little pieces of scrap metal, using a lot of energy to clean them, polish them, shape them, cut them, and weld them all together to create a beautiful piece of art. Sure it’s still reusing junk materials and turning them into something of greater value, but all of that energy used is bad for the environment, and the piece of art does nothing to improve the environment.
Recycling can also be potentially bad for the environment, at least in some ways. For example, if you use a bunch of big, diesel-burning trucks to collect some plastic bottles, then use a lot of energy to melt the bottles down and create something else from them, it may not really be better for the environment, or it might be worse in the short-term but better in the long, term, etc.
So, ultimately, it really comes down to what you recycle/upcycle, and how you do it.
There are three R’s, in order of importance, to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. We tend to focus heavily on the third.
What is more environmentally friendly is to first Reduce your consumption. By not needing as much there is inherently less waste.
Secondly, if you can’t Reduce then Reuse. This could be taking metal eating utensils with you instead of using single use plastic ones. As a home brewer we Reuse glass bottles.
Finally, if you can’t Reduce your consumption, or find ways to Reuse items, then Recycle them.
There’s obviously overlap in some of these terms. By Reusing items you Reduce the number you consume. What does it mean to Recycle? Does donating clothes to charity, or selling them to second hand stores count as recycling? Upcycling? We may even consider a fourth R, Repurpose. If an item has lost its original function then see if you can Repurpose it to something else thus Reducing your consumption.
They are all marketing words without much of a clear meaning. What’s important is that you keep using the same things as much as possible instead of buying new things.
If you reuse a yoghurt pot to hold a seedling, so that you don’t have to go out and buy a pot for the seedling, that’s good. If you use it to hold pencils so you don’t have to buy a container for pencils, that’s good. But if you normally put your pencils in a pencil case and you weren’t going to buy a pot, it’s not really better than throwing it away. It’s just more clutter.
What you can do with a piece of trash depends on what the trash is. Upcycling is when you find a better use, downcycling is when you find a worse use. Using yoghurt pots to make clothing (somehow) may be considered upcycling; using them to patch holes in the wall may be considered downcycling. Using them to make more yoghurt pots is recycling. But that’s just marketing. Either way, you are still reusing trash instead of buying something new, and that’s the point.
You don’t get to choose “I want to do upcycling” vs “I want to do downcycling”. What you can do with the trash, depends on what the trash is.
Reduce, reuse, recycle in that order. If you can avoid buying something in the first place by borrowing a tool from a friend for instance that’s the best thing to do. It also includes buying used when you can because that’s always greener than buying a newly produced item. Reuse means if you buy something, using it until it’s worn out or finding something else to do with it when you’re done with it is better than throwing it out. Recycling is better than throwing stuff into a landfill but not as eco-friendly as avoiding buying it in the first place, so it’s last in the order.
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