This article focuses on reuse and upcycling, and illustrates lots of examples happening around the country, reflecting the great re-skilling, inspiration, enterprise and lifestyle changes required to reduce waste; from repair cafes to workspace provision, from high-end upcycling fashion to everyday reuse. I am pleased to report that upcycling is thriving all over the world, often in places one would not expect, as innovative artists, designers, crafts people and enthusiasts redefine the consumer throwaway age; and of course those in developing countries have been upcycling for years since ‘waste’ first originated.
Now Devon has its own Reuse Project to run during 2015 to stimulate reuse and upcycling around the county with workshops and skill sharing events on upcycling furniture, bike repair, creative clothing, and transform your textiles, with repair cafes also to be held for general repair and electrical items. There will be community reuse event kits for loan to make hosting events easier, and a reuse forum set up to network individuals, small businesses, and others involved in reuse. I have selected different working examples from around the country which may be of interest. There is also the website www.repaircafe.org full of tips to help people set up their own events. I am amazed by the ingenuity and creativity, there are a lot of inspiring upcycling photos from around the world on Pinterest. I have assembled an upcycling selection at www.pinterest. com/richardgomme. Some that standout out for me are large scale public space sculptures, such as the tin can street pavilion in Israel, the plastic bottle Christmas tree in Lithuania made from 40,000 waste bottles that lights up and is 30ft tall, the plastic bottle giant fish on the beach in Rio, Brazil, the Russian pensioners building décor made from thousands of plastic bottle tops. There is Katie Thomson in South Africa, at www.recreate.za.net. For an online shop featuring upcycled handmade items see www.etsy.com. www.upcyclethat.com is a natty website full of upcycling ideas and inspiration, some of which are 25 looking for kickstarter funding on www.kickstarter.com. If you have a worthy enterprise that needs funding to get it going do consider kickstarter. Other innovative uses include top end fashion belts, bags and other items made from old fire brigade firehoses by Elvis and Kresse, www.elvisandkresse. com. There are flip flop shoe soles from car tyre treads, see www.tireflops.com. Volunteer groups and social enterprises are innovating with upcycling and repair too, such as Tivertons’ Repair café. www.facebook.com/ tivertonrepaircafe. Refurnish Devon’s ReStore is at Dartington Shops, which is hosting regular drop-in Repair Cafes on the last Saturday of each month from 10.00am- 1.30pm, starting 31st January. The shop has a range of restored and recreated items for sale. www.facebook.com/ ReStoreDartington. Exeter’s‘The Bike Bank’ bike repair and training project includes re-skilling disadvantaged people in bike repair and refurbishment, providing bikes for low income people. www.facebook. com/BikeBankDevon. ‘Out of the Dark’ is in High Wycombe, it restores and revamps salvaged furniture as a means to train, educate and employ young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and steer them away from crime, with an ethos of being an extended family. www.outofthedark.org.uk The ‘Goldfinger Factory’ in West London is an up-cycling production and learning hub for the training, support and inspiration of London’s most disadvantaged residents to create desirable furnishings and fit-outs for London’s trendsetters with a social conscience. www.goldfingerfactory.com ‘The Remakery’ is a new project in London to provide affordable workspace, tools and access to reclaimed materials destined for landfill for makers to reuse. The aim is for Remakers – local residents, makers, artists and businesses – to reuse materials to create products, enterprises, jobs and opportunities and develop new skills. Any profit is used to subsidise the Remakery social programmes and help those at a disadvantage in the community. www.remakery.org ‘The Restart’ project encourages and empowers people to use their electronics for longer, by sharing repair and maintenance skills. The project helps people learn to repair their own electronics in community events and in workplaces. www.therestartproject.org For community events the Repair Café Foundation says: “Really the most important thing is to have a team of dependable and enthusiastic volunteers who are willing to give up their free time and offer their skills and tools to help others learn how to repair their things. If you have that, your repair cafe will soon grow. It is a fun, social way to combat the general frustration with wasted materials, resources and a loss of skills… it’s a community, a space for empowerment and the site of transformation where people’s relationships with their things shift from consumer to owner.”
Richard Gomme
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