Fashion Upcycling: Giving Vintage Clothes a New Look
I can recall a campaign for the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle 
concept that was common when I was little (and is still around today). The first time I learned about this “new” green practice was on a PBS sponsor break while I waited for Sesame Street to come on. I immediately knew that it was for me. To think that I could help in the preservation of our Earth was something I have felt very strongly about since day one.
After learning about these practices, my Mom and I walked along the side of our road collecting litter for recycling. I would always make sure to reuse my plastic bottles for water on the go then put them in the recycling bin when they reached the end of their life. Our back hallway became home to several paper bags that sorted the bottles and cans from the paper products that would later be taken to the recycling center. It wasn’t until just a few years ago, though, that I learned about something that is even better for the preservation of our planet than the three “R’s” mantra: upcycling.
Also known as repurposing, upcycling sounds like a strange and confusing thing to do, but it’s good for the environment and can also be really fun. To upcycle is to take something that would ordinarily be headed for the trash and make it into something entirely new that will stick around for a long time.
The classic example of upcycling that I often cite is an arts and crafts project that you’ve most likely seen – turning a soda bottle into a bird feeder. You put holes in it for the birds to swoop in and out, add some sticks for them to perch on, dump in some birdseed and hang it from a tree.
Upcycling is different from reusing because the purpose it is given is new. And upcycling is better than recycling because it cuts down on the carbon footprint that would be made by sending each bottle (or can, bag, etc.) away to the recycling center to be sorted, then to wherever they melt the plastic down and make it into a new bottle, then to the manufacturing center where it will be filled with more soda, then to the distribution center, and the store, and finally to the consumer’s home. There’s a lot of gasoline being used, pollution being emitted, and facilities using up energy which all chip away at our natural-resources in order to make that recycling happen. Recycling is better than just adding to the landfills, but if we can find a way to upcycle something it will be even better for the Earth at the end of the day.
The best thing about upcycling is that there are endless possibilities. Using your imagination to turn one thing into another in an effort to give it new life is super exciting and very satisfying when all is said and done. I recently found an outdated dress at Goodwill, bought it, and turned it into a new super cute dress, then used the extra material to make an apron – that’s upcycling!
Goodwill does it’s best to reuse items by accepting donations from people that would ordinarily be headed to the landfills, and make them available for others who may be able to use them. But rather than keeping the purpose of that dress entirely the same, I also made it into something different. I do this quite a bit, finding lots of inspiration on the shelves at Goodwill then using a bit of creativity to turn it into something I’m likely to keep around for awhile. Who says that I have to use these things for the same thing that the previous owners did? Giving new life to things that are outdated and unlikely to find a new home is a great way to help the Earth.
Jeeze, Julia! (@jeezejulia)is our guest blogger today – she writes about fashion "upcycling" and how to give… http://fb.me/ZEHocg4F