reduce. reuse. recycle. sound familiar?

This was the drumbeat of environmental awareness throughout the past few decades. Although this is a phrase the EPA will never abandon, protecting our environment has evolved past slogans into a conversation about how businesses and individuals alike can incorporate sustainability into their daily practices.

This evolution has coined many buzz words such as “eco-friendly,” “triple bottom line” and the topic of today's blog: “up-cycling.”

what is up-cycling?

It's a concept separate from recycling. Recycling is a process that returns materials to a previous state.

Up-cycling, on the other hand, is reusing discarded objects or materials in such a way to creation a product of a higher quality or value that the original.

(Yep, that's what your crafty friend who turned all of those old wine bottles into a “chandelier” was doing.)

not crafty?

Up-cycling doesn't have to be pinterest-worthy!

• your grandma was up-cycling when she turn old feed sacks into a new dress during the depression
• your dad up-cycled when he made planters out of old coffee cans in the 70's
• you up-cycle every time you clean and remove the label from a mason jar to use for food storage
  

Projects can be practical or highly artistic but no matter how you do it, up-cycling is an incredibly valuable practice for us all to incorporate into our lives.

So important, in fact, we developed our brand around the concept!

So don’t be intimidated by that crafty-friend who makes up-cycling look like a fine art, it’s not. Up-cycling is simply getting the most we possibly can out of a product or material.

Like that white sweater you spilled red wine on last week… that would make a great filler for your new molly mutt dog bed! (or just dye the whole thing red and bam, you have a new red sweater!)

However you do it, you can’t go wrong with up-cycling!