on what "upcycling" means + lamp inspiration

When I saw that several of you had left comments asking what "upcycling" means, I realized that I should have explained. After all, this is what I will primarily be posting about here on The Garbage Game!

Upcycling is re-purposing or altering material into a product of higher value. It is important to note that this is different from the recycling that we seem to be most familiar with, which is the recycling of products like plastic bottles. When a plastic bottle is recycled, it is made into a lower grade, and thus, less valuable, plastic. (This process is called downcycling; it is not upcycling.) This is why upcycling is generally more eco-friendly than downcycling is. More in-depth definitions of these terms can be found here.

Now that we have a better idea of what upcycling is, here is some lamp upcycling inspiration:

map lamp

mason jar lights

plastic bottle chandeliers

Photos from here, here, & here

My next post will be a full-on tutorial. I'm keeping the actual project a surprise, but don't worry-- we are starting small. Next post's tutorial will be about something much easier and much less time-consuming to make than these beautiful light fixtures.

the garbage game: an introduction

I have attempted to start an upcycling/sustainability blog for quite some time now. Each one has been set up, carefully named and then brutally abandoned-- all in a month or two.

Now, I am starting yet another blog, but this time I should (hopefully) have more of an incentive to keep at it. I am required to blog weekly for my Journalism II class, and this is where I will be doing that. Besides the occasional post on an assigned topic, I will mostly be writing about upcycling.

Eventually, I would also like to explore the relationships between upcycling, living sustainably and environmental activism.

As a disclaimer, I would like to point out that while doing things like upcycling and composting are definitely valuable for the environment, they are only starting points. Just upcycling and composting does not make one an environmental hero.

Annie Leonard explains this well in her book The Story of Stuff:

"There are things we can do to lessen environmental health impacts... So, yes, we should engage in these actions, as long as we don't let them either lull us into a false sense of accomplishment or let the effort of maintaining this constant, uptight, rigorous green screen on our lifestyle exhaust us. In other words, as long as taking these actions doesn't stand in the way of your engaging in the broader political arena for real change, knock yourself out."

I am guilty of having allowed upcycling and recycling and picking up garbage to give me the false sense of accomplishment that Leonard is referring to.

Ultimately, my goal for blogging is to learn more about real environmental change while also exploring new ideas for my beloved hobby of upcycling.