Love This // "Reusable Shopping Bags Out of Old T-Shirts"
via feeds.gawker.com
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Here are posterous posts filed under upcycling...
Zappps Box Upcycling
We received an oversized box last night from Zappos. Within two minutes of emptying the box, my daughter started climbing in and playing around. Instead of letting her crawl around in a boring old box, I decided to have some fun with it. Five minutes = a lot of fun. I snapped these pics on the ol' iPhone when I was running out the door this morning. The lighting sucks, but you get the point. If anyone is interested in better pics, I'll take some pictures with a real camera.
I'm thinking of adding a few embellishments to the box-house, but with one restriction... Any architectural changes require the use of the original box. I need to figure out how to make the door stay shut and be easy to use for a one-year old, from both in and out, with cardboard. Any suggestions are welcome.
Upcycling At Its Best: A Recycled Cup Canopy
via inhabitat.com
"One of the main principles of permaculture is that 'the problem is the solution.'
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If some of us would just put forth the extra effort, I think we'd all find things like this could spark our personal creativity and -- dare I say --- be fun.
Upcycling Vespa
Barcelona Studio Bel & Bel have upcycled one of my favourite objects, the Vespa.
Container Housing Project
A visionary project that will turn 93 reused shipping containers into housing units has achieved some important milestones.
via Model D
Resource Constraints Attracting Innovation
As I was listening to a conversation with a Cisco exec this morning on BBC, an additional take on why the lower reaches of the pyramid are becoming fertile ground for innovation around technology and new business models emerged that is counterintuitive to the way business have thought about low-income consumers before. Cisco's Chris Dedicote, who I wrote about last year for Worldchanging, talked about how the fact that consumers have little extra money to spend is precisely what is making them potential early adopters of new technologies and models like smart energy meters and new forms of mobile banking (and one could add things like low-emission city cars, upcycled materials, and on and on the list goes).
Five years ago, that idea would have seemed strange when there were plenty of higher income consumers to be tapped with this sort of innovation. Dedicote was articulating (thankfully) a systems view which has been missing—there won't be resources or new consumers to tap unless we find ways to do more with less collectively, and help individual consumers do the same individually.
Back to School
This pic is horrible but it's a brilliant marketing on the part of the Frito-Lay. They’ve found a way to make chips and pretzels eco-friendly without all that inconspicuous solar power and biodegradable bags they use with their Sun Chips (loved those sun chips when I was in NY, really delicious!). Plus, in so doing, they’ve managed to turn US teenagers into walking advertisements.
Frito-Lay has partnered with TerraCycle to make school supplies (pencil bags, folders and the like) out of recycled chip bags.
Closing The Loop On Waste
Here's another great example of upcycling - creating new more superior products from materials that would otherwise end as solid waste in our landfills. Alternative Consumer reports that LooptWorks, the Oregon-based eco-fashion company has come up with innovative ways to upcycle or reuse "pre-consumer" textile (the unused portions of textile or fabric discarded in garments manufacturing) and fashion these into durable, earth-friendly, and stylish apparel. Read the article "Closing The Loop On Waste" at Alternative Consumer or take a peek at the stylish green creations over at LooptWorks.
