如何智取浪费

这是一个摘录智取垃圾：垃圾的现代理念和如何看待它的我们的出路与贝瑞特 - 科勒出版社的许可。

The art of upcycling

The key difference between upcycling and reusing waste is that with upcycling the original intention of the object changes. For example, if a painter uses a painted canvas for a new painting, he is reusing the canvas. But if instead that same painter takes the canvas apart, uses the wood to make a frame and uses the fabric to make a purse — that’s upcycling.

Upcycling is not a new idea

The idea of upcycling isn’t all that new. People have been upcycling for thousands of years. In fact, before the Industrial Revolution (and before processes typically needed for recycling became readily available), reuse and upcycling were common practices. There were no landfills or incinerators to speak of, and the idea of “disposable goods” simply didn’t exist in the way it does today. If your pants wore out, the remaining material could be used as cleaning rags or to make another piece of clothing. If a leg broke off your kitchen table, the wood that originally made the table could be used to make a shelf.

The concept of waste is a luxury, and this is perhaps why upcycling is more commonplace in poor countries than in rich ones. If you don’t have the resources to buy new objects, you will fulfill your needs by looking at what is available and using that — getting quite creative in the process.

Leave your assumptions at the door

环绕升级改造你的头，最好的办法是停止寻找对象的浪费。以来自大自然，并期待在尖你的“废物”作为一种有价值的材料 - 的输出，其初衷并不需要确定其当前的目的。看那个物体是什么，但试图忽略它是什么。事实上，试图假装你甚至不知道这是什么的摆在首位取得。

例如，从升级改造的点，芯片袋不是食品包装;它是一个柔性塑料膜。这是具有非常高的拉伸强度的防水，色彩鲜艳，薄且易于撕裂的材料。这种材料比较明显的应用是纺织和缝纫，但可能性是无止境的。

再举一个例子：自行车链条。如果你不知道，被制成自行车的重要组成部分，你将被释放，看看它没有这种镜头 - 作为一个重型金属链连接到自身和可以很容易地制作成更小的部分。珠宝，壶，时钟和其它升级回收对象的主机仅开始划伤一次的自行车链的用途的表面上。

或者怎么样一个黑胶唱片？如果你不知道这些对象作了播放音乐（这可能与很多年轻的人的情况下），你只看到一个飞盘大小的黑色塑料盘。如果你做了一些试验，你会发现它可以在应用有点热用吹风机后成型。一旦有什么可能已经洗完澡间卧室和音乐舞蹈俱乐部现在可以很容易地形成一个碗，盘，或时钟。这不胜枚举上是真正由我们的想象力的限制。

升级改造的业务

People have been upcycling for as long as new objects have broken or, recently, gone out of fashion, but the field is really just picking up from a commercial perspective. In the past decade, socially conscious organizations have made upcycling their business. This first began with various nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in poorer countries such as Mexico and the Philippines.

Beginning in September 2004, the People’s Recovery, Empowerment, Development Assistance (PREDA) Foundation, a charitable organization that was founded in the Philippines in 1974, began producing, selling and shipping items made from upcycled juice pouches — a waste stream just as common in the Philippines as in the United States.

PREDA培养人们收集旧果汁袋（包括许多学生，帮助他们的学校挣钱的过程中），他们付出的努力，并教给他们有关的环境。所收集袋的清洗和消毒后，PREDA使它们提供给谁生产手工艺品的妇女。自2004年以来已PREDA卖了几千升级回收的产品遍布世界各地。

Mitz, named for a Nahuati word meaning “for you,” was founded in 2003 (a year before PREDA) by Judith Achar. She started Mitz to fund Casa de Niños de Palo Solo, a Montessori school in Mexico that has provided community service for low-income students since 1979.

搜索的方式来发展社区和有工作成员的份额，朱迪思汇聚了一批母亲从当地学校和企业抛出的材料制造的日常用品。主要产品有手织袋由各种食品包装包装制作。

可回收作为一个行业并不仅仅局限于地方，如墨西哥和PhilippinES;人在世界上更发达的地区也越来越进入企业。1993年平面设计师兄弟马库斯和Daniel Freitag的是在寻找一个斜挎包。灵感来自于有色卡车防水布，他们看到在瑞士的高速公路，他们开始FREITAG，一个非常成功的公司，现在使各种可用的升级回收袋所有周围的世界。

But the list doesn’t stop with truck tarps and messenger bags. Chaba Décor upcycles wood from demolished boats and buildings to make picture frames and other items for home decor. Ecoist, similar in function to Mitz, weaves candy wrappers into fashionable bags. Global Exchange upcycles old magazines into bowls, flip-flops into doormats, soda cans into wallets and much more.

The Greenshop upcycles print blankets, billboards and inner tubes to make pet collars, laptop covers and notebook folders. New York-based in2green creates cotton apparel, blankets and totes using yarn made from T-shirt clippings. Transglass makes beautiful vases and other glass pieces from old wine bottles.

白衣麦克劳德repurposes橡木酒酒桶做出独特的家具。垃圾箱放upcycles汽水罐和中国 - 外卖盒到便携音箱的MP3播放器和吉他放大器。上升周期产品repurposes大型食品桶成雨桶和堆肥。而我的公司，TerraCycle，在升级改造的全球领导者，让一切从饼干包装风筝葡萄酒桶堆肥。

The list of upcycled products is at least as long as the list of waste product materials that can be used in their construction (and the companies doing it). Fortunately, you don’t have to be a company or an NGO to leverage the benefits of upcycling yourself.

利用升级改造作为个人

It takes something of a do-it-yourself (DIY) mentality to successfully upcycle at home. Add that to your newfound perspective on waste and, voilà, you are ready to outsmart waste at home by upcycling. Upcycling at home is even more environmentally friendly than having an upcycling company do it because you avoid the environmental impacts that come with transporting waste to the upcycling company and then transporting the upcycled product back to you.

成功的在家升级改造的关键是首先分离出你的垃圾。尽量保持有机物和无机物分开。即使你不这样做堆肥，考虑为有机废物一个垃圾桶，一个用于无机物。这个简单的分离也将使其在事件更容易，你最终开始堆肥的行为。

一旦你开始你的分离垃圾，考虑清洁它把它变成你的垃圾桶前，只是现在你的“垃圾桶”是不是一个真正的垃圾可以了 - 这是一个“原料存储单元”。考虑到这一点，尽量组织它作为一个车间你会原料。您移除的酸奶杯，并从糖果包装纸巧克力酸奶后，尝试浪费组织成三个基本类别。

软包装：一切从芯片袋糖果包装纸臭名昭著的塑料购物袋 - 如果你能变皱，它适合在柔性包装类别。如果保持材料类型在一起（芯片袋芯片袋和塑料袋塑料袋），事实上你可以直接导火索在一起通过将它们蜡纸片之间，并在他们运行一个温暖的铁。得到的材料则可以缝合，不流泪，到手提包，钱包，饭盒和几乎任何你能想象。

硬包装：酸奶浴缸和塑料瓶是伟大的例子of rigid packaging. Although rigid objects cannot be sewn, they are great building blocks both literally and figuratively. If you punch a drainage hole in the bottom, yogurt cups and margarine tubs can be used to start seedlings or grow full-sized plants. Plastic bottles can be cut in half and made into candleholders or gardening tools and also can make great building blocks for sheds, fences and even homes if filled with sand or something similar.

一切：由于柔性和刚性包装构成大多数家庭垃圾，不管用什么方法适合任一类别可以一起去。因为你可以在这里遇到的各类废物的范围是巨大的，“一切”可以稍微更具挑战性。但是，不要惊慌 - 几乎所有的东西都有升级改造潜力。酒瓶塞可制成corkboards，瓶盖成艺术和珠宝，笔成吊灯，和和。If you are having any trouble thinking of what to create with a particular waste item, go to your favorite search engine, type in the name of the waste stream followed by the word "upcycled," and you’ll likely find a whole slew of ideas.

分类家庭垃圾升级改造

- 有机物

- 无机软包装

- 无机硬质包装

- 其他的一切

With proper separation, a little cleaning and a DIY spirit, you effectively can upcycle most of your garbage into useful items — and are well on your way to eliminating the idea of waste in your home.

Leveraging upcycling at work

可回收性不局限于你的家，是还可以被带到工作场所可持续发展的做法。TerraCycle，例如，在24个国家设有办事处，而且我们所有的办公室的设计，并配有完全升级回收的材料。舾装工作区与升级回收材料的好处（超越有我们的美国总部被称为由纽约时报“在世界上最酷的办公室”的一个）是它的成本比传统的室内设计方案要少得多。当您使用废料，你的原材料成本是非常低的，很多时候免费，有时甚至是负的。

除了利用废设计一个办公室，很多企业都在做的东西的业务。工厂，例如，几乎总是在生产过程中产生消费前废弃物（或“工厂废料”）。

消费前废弃物不只是工厂在供应链的末端，但所有沿整个供应链的工厂产生的，通常代表年产量3％至10％。

The great thing about pre-consumer waste is that it is typically clean and best of all it’s sorted — it’s truckloads of clean labels or clean bottles if you are in the shampoo business, and it’s truckloads of trimmings and unused fabrics if you are in the clothing business. Whatever it is, it is prime raw material for upcycling. Consider upcycling the waste your workplace produces, or ask a company that upcycles to help you out.

不要限制你的升级改造的野心，只是你的家。智胜垃圾是没有国界的，可以单独和组织应用。虽然有很多方法可以上升周期，和一个巨大的项目的数量，可以升级回收，也有一些限制。

升级改造的限制

Upcycling is more of an art than a science and, unfortunately, it does have its limits. First, not everyone is a do-it-yourselfer who is willing to separate and clean waste for upcycling purposes. Not only is upcycling limited by the number of people who are willing to do it but the current market size (as demonstrated by the companies that are in the upcycling business) is very small — perhaps because it’s a relatively new business concept or perhaps because the market actually is quite small.

要升级改造的另一个限制是，它是一个相对低容量的解决方案与废物的总量在那里进行比较。Even if every backpack, pencil case and tote bag in the world were made out of upcycled juice pouches, that would still represent only about 10 percent of all the juice pouches produced, not to mention that an upcycled backpack covered with logos doesn’t appeal to everyone.

最后，并非一切居然可以升级回收。二手口香糖，尿布和香烟不能在技术上以同样的方式一个旧桶或塑料袋可升级回收。

Regardless of the limits, if you believe in the idea of outsmarting waste by upcycling, you can support it as a practice by buying upcycled goods. This is where that almighty vote you cast by buying stuff comes into play.

几乎所有你能想象的任何产品都有一个升级回收对口;它只是可能需要一点时间来找到它。

对于大批量解决方案垃圾，特别是不能重复使用或升级回收垃圾，我们向下移动的垃圾层次 - 回收利用。

(升级改造的限制)：

— Not everyone is willing to separate and clean waste.

— It is a low-volume solution compared with the total volume of waste.

— Not everything can be upcycled.