Some artists, organisations, designers and individuals who are not just good, they’re amazing and what they create is any one, and sometimes all of a list of purposeful, life saving, life enhancing, awe inspiring, beautiful or just downright funky.
Niels Craens is a graphic designer who used his design skills to respond to the problem of what to do with cardboard drinks packages that can't be recycled, because of their aluminium content and plastic cap. He created a lamp that when illuminated reveals the hidden words 'Enjoy Twice'.
Mary Ellen Croteau recommisions plastic bottlecaps into intriguing strings of colour. She reached the creative limitations of bottletop towers and so raised the bar by putting herself in the picture.
Aurora Robeson is one of my favourite upcycling artists her 3D plastic debris sculptures are beautiful and reflect the fragility of our eco system, her graffitesque junk mail collages are fresh as citrus fruit.
Upcycle Living is a company with a philosophy based around 'affordable, conscious living', They make dwellings out of old shipping containers. One of their best proposals was to ship disaster relief supplies to Haiti in containers that could then be upcycled into living space.
The artists and companies in this post are the tip of an upcycling iceburg and if you've found yourself wondering how the hell people come up with these ideas and whether you could do it yourself, I would say that if you're going to make a half worthy attempt at creating something, beautiful, functional and worthwile from the funkiest of junk, approach upcycling something like a wonky archaelogist, each piece in its raw state holds clues not so much as to what it was, but how to approach it's transformation from a waste item into a piece of art, so ignore what it used to be and you should find what and how it wants to become'.
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