Reduce, Reuse, Upcycle!
courtesy Dreamweavers
Dreamweavers pilates ball
The green trends just keep coming. The latest? Upcycling. As its name suggests, upcycling is a variation—many believe a considerably greener variation—on recycling. Why greener? Recycling involves breaking down a product to create something else, such as melting plastic bottles to make more plastic bottles or perhaps pulverizing them into a fleece jacket. A good thing, for sure, but the process uses energy. With upcycling, a discarded product is crafted into something new without altering its initial composition, making it far less energy consumptive. Bike chains are fashioned into picture frames, bed linens turn into clothing, or, as pictured in the Dreamweavers Pilates ball at left (dweavers.com), neckties become the upholstery on a piece of fitness equipment.
Basalt interior designer Robyn Scott, who used a Dreamweavers cube in a recent project, sees the trend as eco-friendly but also just plain fun. “In addition to promoting green-ness, upcycled items provide unique conversation pieces for the home,” she says. And she’s right. We can’t stop talking about them.
