Why we Upcycle.

A few days ago, I was afforded the opportunity to give a presentation about upcycling to the Hellgate High School student body. A good part of the presentation covered why one might upcycle to begin with. While some of this may be self evident, I still think it is useful to examine a bit closer. So for what it's worth, four major reasons to upcycle.

1. Upcycle to keep items out of the land fill and out of the recycling bins. Upcycling is preferable to both. Everyday the average American creates around 7.1 pounds of trash daily. That's over 2 billion pounds a day for our country. To put that in perspective, It's as if we throw out 200 million automobiles a year. That's a lot of trash to shuffle, burn or bury. Recycling is preferable to throwing away, but it still takes a lot of man power and energy to get the materials back into a raw state to be reused.
2. Upcycle to prevent the extraction of resources from nature. Rampant logging deforests our last remaining great wild lands and toxic mine tailings seep into our streams. Mass consumption extolls a catastrophic environmental impact.  While we will never entirely stop the extraction of resources, upcycling can make a significant difference.  
3. Upcycle out of necessity. While it's sometime easy to forget when living in a culture where almost anything you could need can be bought in a box store, this is the first and primary reason for most upcycling. Since the dawn of man, people have reused materials on hand to build shelter, mend fences and fashion tools. In America, the Great Depression brought about poverty but with it an uptick in upcycling. Case in point flour sack dresses. Today, around the world people are upcycling their way to a better life. Case in point the upcycled orchestras that have popped up independently in Congo and in Paraguay.
4. Upcycle because it allows for awesome! Whether it's a shipping container turned into housing, art from license plates or a sea kayak made of 2 liter bottles, there's a ton of interesting and unique things being made through upcycling. Need more examples? Pop by our store. 

Why do you upcycle?