“We did that in the war, too.” Guest Post by Katy Sanders

I’m home for the holidays, which means that I’ve spent a good portion of the last few days trying to explain to my grandmother what upcycling is. I’ve shown her my post-punctured bicycle inner tube laptop case, bottle cap earrings, and scrap metal jewelry but all she keeps saying is, “Oh yes, we did that in the war, too.”

Upcycling is not new, we all know that. Upcycling is something that we have always done out of necessity or creativity but now, alas, it has a name. We call the act of turning trash into treasure “upcycling” and we have learned that we can make a living wage doing so. It’s an exciting time to be upcycling, it’s an environmentally conscious and positive contribution we are making to the world. However, my grandmother likes to remind me that her upcycling experience was not so glamorous.

During and after World War II upcycling was the way my grandmother could afford to have the products she longed for while living in a refugee camp. She told me of how she deconstructed a knit sweater and fashioned it into a bathing suit for the summer months. Then in the fall she would take her bathing suit and re-knit it into her winter sweater. What imagination! What innovation! It makes me think of The Sound of Music when Maria took old curtains and sewed them into play clothes for Captain Von Trapp’s children.

In the 1940s upcycling was an indication of social class. My grandmother said that making Christmas ornaments out of newspapers was embarrassing not an intelligent example of eco consciousness. Breathing life into post-consumer materials, my grandmother and I agree, no longer symbolizes a lack of resources but an abundance of resourcefulness and the upcycling aesthetic is one that we appreciate.

There are so many individuals who are taking upcycling into the future. I see small businesses emerging with such enthusiasm and drive who singlehandedly are making upcycling a magnetic industry and practice. Nothing makes me happier than to see people learning to consumer differently and more efficiently.

Up and out,

Katy