to hate the word 'up-cycling'?

[mousemates]

It drives me absolutely potty. What the actual fuck does it even mean? Isn't up-cycling just the same as recycling, really? Taking someone which was used up/going to be thrown out and using it for something else?

Why can't these rich fucking ponces just say up-cycling?

God, I'm in such a bad mood this morning and listening to some cunt on the radio going on about up-cycling some old shite has driven me around the bend.

Oh no YANBU at all, I hate it. It's so pretentious - 'no I'm not just taking some old shit and making new shit with it, I'm up-cycling'.

You're not listening to 6 music by any chance are you? Pretentio city!

I guess they call it 'up-cycling' because it makes the product sound better than the original thing - this is so that when they are trying to sell it on Etsy at a rip off price people will say 'oh yes I will definitely pay 50 quid lamp shade which was once a jam jar, let me add it to my basket right now!'

I should have said, why can't these people just say recycling in my OP.

So glad other people have noticed this.

Yabu. It really doesn't matter. It means the same thing.

It's so poncey, I agree.

Like "sourcing" things. Normal people just find stuff and buy it.

I generally think once something has been 'upcycled' it looks worse than when it stared.

Same with shabby-chic. HATE IT SO MUCH!

Has anyone else found it's getting harder to fine nice older furniture these days that hasn't had old maps pasted over it or been Annie Sloaned? Really annoys me!

They are not the same thing. Recycling means taking a product and taking the individual components back to the start of their life-cycle. Recycling is an incredibly energy-intensive process. Imagine recycling something made of steal- the steal has to be melted down and fe-fabricated. The carbon emissions of this process are enormous. It's the same with clothing- the longer you keep something, the more sustainable it is.

Upcycling means turning that product into something new without having to recycle it and therefore is a very sustainable way to deal with a product at the end of its life.

You have to have two separate words because of the important difference in embodied energy.

Silent YES, I completely agree with you.

I wanted an old fashioned rocking chair for our spare room. I found lots of 'up-cycled' ones which were painted multi-colours, had ridiculously out-of-place upholstery or were covered with maps or printed words. I didn't find one of these that cost less that £250. The most expensive was a horrible bright pink one with a woman's face on the seat painted in dots which cost £1,100!

In the end I found a perfect mahogany one in really good condition that hadn't been cunted about with for £85 in our local furniture charity shop. The chappie let me have it for £70 because I took it away that day.

sidge Do you watch the Great Interior Design Challenge? They are absolute bastards for 'sourcing' things. The designers say 'I need to source some more fabric'. No, darling, you need to buy some more fabric. Fucking buy it.'

I quite agree. Fucking wordy bastards.

cunted about with

source may mean - use it from the source I have access to, not necessarily paying for it

source may mean - use it from the source I have access to, not necessarily paying for it

np, that's just getting

I get apples from my neighbour's tree.
I don't pay for them.

I don't source them.

I get them.

So agree. Sourcing is an awfully poncy word.

I watched that Great Interior Design Challenge twice last week and my husband was spitting nails at them "up cycling" a coat stand and a picture frame, he hates the term. The original things were far nicer than their hideous attempts at "up cycling". If anything they should call it down cycling as they made a perfectly acceptable coat stand into the most stupid looking lamp shade possible.

yanbu
and tbh the 'upcycled' things on tv look like they might be smelly as well. old suitased as shelves/tables?
this must be how bedbugs spread...

no thank you, I prefer something that can be washed down if I spill something.

I also hate "vintage". "oh yah yah, my new dress is totes vintage, that my look now". Fuck the fuck off you vintage, dusty smelling cunt.

Very pretentious, isen't it blooming recycling fgs.

Lemon Down cycling I love it. Yes, I was gutted about what they did with the coat stands and the did something similar to some lovely classic standard lamps the week before.

The programme has, however, inspired me to do something with some plain white cushion covers I've got hanging around. I wouldn't describe it as 'up cycling' though. I'm sewing some buttons on. I'm 'tarting up' at best.

and what is it with maps?
decoupaging maps on a desk? I will not be able to find anything on it ever again.

Poopooplop LOL Dusty smelling cunt

I have a friend who works in a charity shop and she said that when 'vintage' became a thing, they took down about a third of their stock which was really dated clothes of a very particular era (i.e. very definitely 70s or 80s or even 90s), shoved up some signs saying 'Vintage' with bunting and other twee shite then put the 'vintage' clothes back up in the vintage section about up to ten times the price. The shop's now got a reputation for vintage stuff even though the actual type, quality, age and variety of stuff hasn't changed at all.

YY to all these. Also when words like zeitgeist or eclectic are used in magazines or weekend papers. No one talks like that. WTF do these words mean?

I also hate when people do or did somewhere. 'Last year we did Rome and Mallorca'.

No you didn't, you went there.

Hmm. I just changed the buttons on a cardigan. Not a "vintage" one (Banana Republic), just didn't like the buttons. So I snipped them off and replaced them with ones I had bought sourced from John Lewis a marvellous little place I know.

Its not really made it better or worse, just different: side-cycling, do we think?

The 'upcycling' in Great British Interior Design thingy is hilarious. Last week they were given old hatstands to 'upcycle'. One woman just cut the top off it and hung it from the middle light fitting.

That's not 'upcycling' that's hanging something upside down for the sake of it until it fell off in the judge's hand anyway.

I don't watch TGIDC but I do have a subscription to Ideal Home.

I love the mag but if they mention 'pops of colour' one more time I'm going to go postal in their HQ...

I feel the same way about "foraging"

It's just picking stuff, no different from when we went blackberry or sloe picking when I was little

Silent/Mousemates - you need to go to auctions.
Brown furniture is at its cheapest ever these days because it's unfashionable and we're supposed to want it all Annie Sloaned, so you have to get to it before the shops get their hands on it. At the auctions we go to, seriously good quality Victorian chests of drawers cost less than the same thing from Ikea and then dh ruins them by putting coffee cups on them without coasters.