Upcycle Hawaii Blog

      Let me first make it clear, I live for Upcycle Hawaii, upcycling and repurposing.  It’s the reason I get out of bed every morning, what consumes my every waking minute and the reason I go to bed most nights filled with new ideas.  But… I don’t think that upcycling is "the solution" to our overwhelming problem with waste management and (plastic) pollution.        The look on people’s faces when they realize that our products are actually made from “trash” is intoxicating to me.  In fact, whenever working a live event or pop-up, I always wait a...

      Believe it or not, there was once a time when I actually thought that I was going to run out of plastic.  The County that I live in had enacted a plastic bag ban and my products had just started gaining in popularity.  “Oh, well,” I thought, since running out of plastics is actually the goal.  It wouldn’t be too long, however, until I realized how small I was thinking.   A fender-bender in a parking lot would totally change my perspective.       One day, my Prius was hit at work and sustained some pretty decent damage....

       It’s a little cliché, I know, but the saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” really does a great job summarizing what I feel upcycling is.  In addition, it reminds us that it’s all about perspective and point-of-view; the things in our lives which are constantly (sometimes slowly) shifting based on our experiences.  What we find beautiful one day may, on another day, incite anger or sadness – and that change can be a powerful thing.       I have experienced my own change of perspective during my lifetime – in some ways very large...

      We are all familiar with recycling, but do you know what differentiates recycling from upcycling? Let’s start with a couple of definitions:       The biggest difference is that upcycling creates an item of higher value while recycling usually causes a loss or a maintenance of a value.  Looking at it this way, recycling poses a bit of an economic conundrum-especially when it comes to cheaper virgin material such as plastics.       There are usually more steps in a recycling process then in a virgin manufacturing facility.  Let’s take water bottles as an example....

      I am often confronted with the question: “How do you make your products?”  And, while I am happy to share the majority of my processes, I am not seemingly comfortable giving away my “secrets”.  After experiencing a large volume of such requests, I was inspired to write this blog post as an open answer.             Question: Would you have asked Thomas Edison how he invented the light bulb?  Personally, I would not have.  As someone who has created something through experimentation along with trials and tribulations, I understand the immense value of intellectual property and the protective nature that someone can have.  I have created...