Upcycling is a process in which used or waste products and materials are repaired, reused, repurposed, refurbished, upgraded and remanufactured in a creative way to add value to the compositional elements. It has been part of human life throughout history, and the past few years have seen its revival, driven by multiple factors including growing concern for the environment and resource scarcity. Upcycling increases quality and lifetimes of materials and products, reduces wastes, creates employment opportunities, and encourages sustainable consumer behaviour. Despite such benefits and increasing interest, upcycling is largely considered as a niche practice. One of the important gaps in the current state of knowledge on upcycling is a lack of systemic understanding about challenges and success factors relating to scaling up upcycling businesses. This paper aims to address this gap by employing a broad range of methods for reaching its goal, including literature review, stakeholder analysis, semi-structured interviews, group model building, development of causal loop diagrams, and a workshop with stakeholders and experts to validate causal loop diagrams and discuss promising interventions and how to proceed. The results identified potential actors for the success of upcycling businesses, key challenges and success factors, causal linkages among the challenges and success factors, key system mechanisms, and interventions for scaling up upcycling businesses. Collaboration across the upcycling value chain involving a wide range of actors is also discussed.

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Upcycling presents one of many opportunities for reducing consumption of materials and energy. Despite recent growth evidenced by increasing numbers of practitioners and businesses based on upcycling, it remains a niche activity and requires scaling up to realise its potential benefits. This paper investigates UK household upcycling in order to develop interventions for scaling up upcycling in the UK. Mixed methods were used in four stages: (a) Interviews to gain insights into UK upcycling; (b) a survey to discover key factors influencing UK upcycling; (c) intervention development based on the synthesis of interviews and survey; and (d) use of a semi-Delphi technique to evaluate and develop initial interventions. The results showed approaches to upcycling (e.g., wood, metal and fabric as frequently used materials, online platforms as frequently used source of materials), context for upcycling (e.g., predominant use of home for upcycling), factors influencing UK upcycling with key determinants (i.e., intention, attitude and subjective norm), important demographic characteristics considering a target audience for interventions (i.e., 30+ females) and prioritised interventions for scaling up (e.g., TV and inspirational media and community workshops as short-term high priority interventions). The paper further discusses implications of the study in terms of development of theory and practice of upcycling. View Full-Text

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Highlights

Products were evaluated based on practical approaches to prolong product lifetimes and close material cycles.

An overview of current best practices was presented based on the evaluation of 519 consumer products.

Study identified 145 examples of the current ‘best practice’ that could lead sustainable innovations in the studied sectors.

Studied identified a huge gap in current business models that do not focus on value recovery from post-consumer discards.

Major barriers and opportunities to the best practices for a wider implementation were highlighted.

Abstract

Addressing global sustainability challenges associated with natural resource security and climate change requires new perspective on waste and resource management. Sustainability-driven business model innovations have a crucial role in transforming current, unsustainable, production and consumption patterns by slowing product replacement and closing material cycles. This study identifies best practice across a range of consumer product sectors. The study developed a novel methodology to identify and evaluate practical approaches to resource efficiency and the circular economy in order to reduce energy and material demand in these product sectors. These approaches include durable product design, enhanced repair and upgrade services, and product take-back. The study analysed 519 products and identified a total 145 examples of best practice within their respective product sectors that provide important insights into planning more circular business models in a range of product sectors. The paper highlights major barriers to, and opportunities, for wider implementation of these practices.

Rapidly developing technology and an increasing number of products containing electrical or electronic functions, has led to discarded electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) being one of the fastest growing waste streams. The European Union (EU) has enacted several iterations of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive to address this complex waste stream. However, recycling dominates treatments for e-waste, despite the established ‘waste hierarchy’ showing waste prevention and reuse are generally preferable to recycling.

This paper reports on 30 semi-structured interviews, undertaken across the EEE value chain, examining the impact of the WEEE Directive in the UK. The interviews confirmed that reuse takes place for a limited number of product types, mostly on a small scale. Additionally, whilst legislation has prompted innovation in recycling and higher capture rates, resource recovery is in practice limited to easily salvageable materials, whilst recovery of critical raw materials is often neglected. Furthermore, there is confusion around available collection networks, particularly for small WEEE, which consistently appears in residual waste streams.

The waste hierarchy remains the key component of EU waste strategy and moving to the higher levels of the waste hierarchy is an essential part of achieving sustainable waste management and moving towards a circular economy. The paper proposes a series of measures to this end: promoting recovery routes and practices that facilitate reuse of suitable products, adapting recycling technology to increase recovery of critical raw materials and targeted policies to encourage the application of the waste hierarchy within a resource efficiency-oriented framework.

Read the full paper from Christine Cole, Alex Gnanapragasam, Tim Cooper, and Jagdeep Singh here.

Changing consumer behaviour can reduce environmental impacts. Upcycling is one of the understudied yet promising, environmentally sustainable behaviours that has the potential to contribute to the reduction of waste and greenhouse gas emissions. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by exploring factors influencing upcycling for UK makers. The study employed a survey based on Triandis’s theory of interpersonal behaviour and Ajzen’s theory of planned behaviour. The survey results revealed key determinants of upcycling as attitude, intention, and subjective norm, and demographic characteristics of people who are more likely to upcycle frequently as females aged 30+ working in art and design. The paper further discusses the theoretical and practical implications of the study.

Read the full paper from Kyungeun Sung and Tim Cooper here.

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Abstract

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Abstract

The thermodynamic implications of different bioethanol production routes from wheat straw (a cellulosic co-product or ‘waste’ stream) have been evaluated. Comparative thermodynamic (energy and exergy) analysis gives rise to alternative insights into the relative performance of various process chains. Energy analysis of four different production paths were firstly analysed via the consideration of mechanical work, temperature changes and separating techniques. The Net Energy Value (NEV) of each production path or route was then evaluated, including the effect of system boundary expansion. In contrast, the thermodynamic property known as ‘exergy’ reflects the ability of undertake ‘useful work’, but does not represent well heating processes. Exergetic efficiencies were consequently obtained via chemical and physical exergy calculations, along with some of the electrical inputs to the different processes. The exergetic ’improvement potentials’ of the process stages were then determined using the exergetic efficiencies and irreversibility values respectively. These estimates will enable industrialists and policy makers to take account of some of the ramifications of alternative bioethanol production routes in a low carbon future.

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