Upcycling is a verb meaning to process used goods or materials as to produce something that is often better than the original. These new objects are often more useful, practical, and beautiful due to the user of the object making it. The name was 'coined' in 1994 by Reiner Pilz when he said, "what we need is upcycling where old products are given more value not less”. This is a great way to lower the amount of objects going into landfills, and even using those objects that can not be discarded in landfills. Upcycling also reduces the amount of CO2 being admitted into the air (check the graph page for exact numbers). Now many people think that upcycling and recycling are the same thing, but in reality they are not. Recycling is the act of taking consumer metals, an example would be an aluminum can, and breaking it down to it's base metal using water and energy. When upcycling, you are not breaking the object down to its base metal, you are just refurbishing it. Upcycling also does not require water or energy, just creativity and some elbow grease. You can use anything within your household when upcycling, if you just set your mind to it. As someone has once said, "creativity is making marvelous out of the discarded."
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