What Is Upcycling? How Rice Husks Save Waste
Over the last several decades, we have been encouraged to recycle for the good of the environment, and it’s made a difference! In the United States alone, 32% of generated trash was diverted from disposal in 2018 thanks to recycling and composting. We can do even more with upcycling! For agricultural waste in particular, which is organic matter rather than man-made material, there is a wealth of potential to be tapped. In the būmi community, we’re starting with rice husks. What does upcycling mean? Upcycling means to take waste material that would normally be disposed of—as in sent to a landfill or burned—and turning them into something new. In other words, upcycling looks at waste and says, “Hey, I can do something with that!” and prevents it from ending up in the garbage. Take textile waste, for example. Instead of contributing to the millions of tons of fabrics sent to landfills annually, pieces of shirts can be turned into colorful quilts and leftover scraps can be used as filling inside a larger upcycled product (like pillows or stuffed animals). The waste we start with doesn’t have to be the remnants of a useful item: We can do amazing things with agricultural waste, too! It’s all part of the same goal for sustainability. What are the benefits of upcycling? With upcycling, we can halt the waste disposal process before it ever reaches a landfill or incinerator. Disposing of it is, well, a waste! Just think of what we can do when we turn it into usable material instead. …and much more! While recycling is important and worth doing, that familiar triangle with interlocking arrows found on plastics doesn’t always mean the product is recyclable. That triangle actually refers to a product’s resin code, and the majority of the recyclable plastics have a 1 (PET and rPET) or a 2 (HDPE and rHDPE). The rest? Much more likely to end up in a landfill anyway despite your best intentions.