As Part of the CASA-ELAN Group, ZERO WASTE UAE Creates Hand Painted Vintage Style Shabby Chic Furniture by Upcycling / Recycling Used Furniture into an item of much higher value than the original

We are committed to and aim towards raising people’s awareness of sustainability

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We offer:

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• Corporate Workshops and Seminars – How to Upcycle Household and Industrial Waste

• Hobby and Craft Classes – Upcycling of Concrete, Wood,  Plastic, E waste, Paper and Fabric Scrap

• Online Store for Upcycled Furniture and Products – Sale of Pre loved Upcycled Furniture and Home, Office and Hotel Accessories that Replace Plastic Products.

Contact me on +971 55 3124555  https://www.zerowaste-uae.com/

 

From a conceptual point of view, Upcycling provides things a second life, in the sense that they revive in the form of objects with a higher intrinsic value than what they had in their previous existence. Such a process of reinvention is even more valuable when the discarded pieces it is based upon are somewhat unique.

Of course, not everything can be upcycled, but, when possible, Upcycling is a more efficient process with a lower impact on the environment compared to simple recycling.

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Design: Recycling vs Upcycling. What’s the difference?

What are the most recent results of Upcycling? And how much does it really matter for today’s design?

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People interested in design have probably heard the term Upcycling, often opposed to recycling. Possibly, their reaction could have been: “Oh, just another of the many new words that sound cool but mean almost nothing”. But actually, the distinction between recycling and Upcycling really makes sense, and also invites us to investigate the very sense of terms such as design and sustainability.

But, what makes the two terms differ from one another?

To cut a long story short, I give a practical example:

If we take a used glass bottle, melt it, and with the molten glass we make a lampshade, that’s recycling.

If instead, we take the same bottle, clean it, and directly use it as the shade of our new lamp, that’s Upcyling.

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In short, while recycling implies to reuse components of a product that – after being liquefied, crunched, and the like – were reduced to raw material, Upcycling originates a new product by creatively reusing, all or in part, an object as it is; the resulting product can be either functionally similar to or very different from the old one.

A great advantage of Upcycling is that, compared to recycling, the impact on the environment is reduced; downcycling – namely to convert an object into raw materials, a fundamental part of the recycling process – requires a considerable amount of energy and creates in most cases hazardous water and air pollutants.

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Furthermore, the act of giving a product or even just parts of a product a second life, without the need for “degrading” it, is conceptually fascinating. 

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There is an even more effective strategy: reuse.

If we wash and sanitise our glass bottle and reuse it as a container, that’s would be the best solution.

Those who bottle wine or jam “in-house” know it very well since they carefully store used bottles and jars for future use. As much an object is made up of a few materials and technologically simple as easier it will be to reuse it. Reusing a bottle “as it is” is easy, reusing a broken computer is more arduous. This would require me to introduce concepts such as products’ service life and planned obsolescence, but that would be a different story.

 

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