downcycling

A clear example of downcycling is plastic recycling, which turns the material into lower grade plastics.

Downcycling is the reuse of materials into lesser products.

There are many do-it-yourself downcycling crafting ideas for holidays, parties, and other events.

Downcycling involves converting materials and products into new materials of lesser quality.

Upcycling is the opposite of downcycling, which is the other half of the recycling process.

“That’s what we would call downcycling.

The book discourages downcycling, but rather encourages the manufacture of products with the goal of upcycling in mind.

In addition, recycling often means downcycling and always involves at least some loss of the original material, so primary extraction is still required to make up the difference.

Currently consumer goods are mostly made from mixed plastics which are only suitable for downcycling (conversion into less valuable or less useful products).

Examples include Nike's school curriculum about downcycling of sneakers, and Reebok's Human Rights Awards.

Recycling of PVC often results in downcycling of the material, which means only products of lower quality standard can be made with the recycled material.

Meanwhile, Worn Again has also begun working with both National Grid and M&S to set up their own uniform collection and downcycling programs.

Brominated flame retardants may also change the physical properties of plastics, resulting in inferior performance in recycled products and in "downcycling" of the materials.

It appears that plastics with brominated flame retardants are mingling with flame-retardant-free plastics in the recycling stream and such downcycling is taking place.

The term downcycling was used by Reiner Pilz in an interview by Thornton Kay of Salvo in 1994.

Downcycling of steel by hard-to-separate impurities such as copper or tin can only be prevented by well-aimed scrap selection or dilution by pure steel.

The term downcycling was also used by William McDonough and Michael Braungart in their 2002 book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things.

While downcycling is criticized for reducing the value of a product, it is justified in terms of reducing the energy and CO emissions that would be entailed in producing products from scratch with new raw materials.