Addcycling — environmentally responsible
Did you know that the way we take care of our belongings, particularly of our shoes and clothes, impacts the environment directly?
Waste sorting and recycling have become the very meaning of responsible use. Being an alternative to burning or simply throwing trash away, it helps reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by separating usable materials from waste and putting them to further use.
Recycling is the act of turning waste into usable raw materials. In order to achieve this, energy is needed, alongside different dyes and chemicals if the material in question is textile.
Recycling aims at environmental sustainability by filling the need for raw materials in the industrie with recycled ones.
Downcycling or cascading, is the recycling of waste where the recycled material is of lower quality and functionality than the original material, downcycling can help keep materials in use. Most recycling is actually downcycling; meaning it reduces the quality of a material over time. An example would be when plastics other than those found in soda and water bottles are recycled, then they’re mixed with different plastics to produce a hybrid of lower quality, which is then molded into something amorphous and cheap, such as a park bench or a speed bump.
Upcycling is reusing waste without destroying it in order to form something new. Upcycling requires little to no energy which makes it very environmentally friendly. The goal is to stop letting potentially useful materials go to waste. Doing this reduces the amount of raw materials and energy used daily and at the same time does not pollute at all.
In some cases, little energy is required to reuse a discarded product, an example would be second hand clothing, DIY furniture,houses built from bottles or even art . In other cases, the energy required to recover the materials is more than the energy required to process virgin materials. Thus, in some cases, upcycling may be worse for environmental purposes if energy comes from fossil fuels.
Addcycling is a completely new trend in the idea of recycling and understanding the cycles of materials and raw materials, focused on such use of existing materials, items and objects, leading to their longer use.
While upcycling gives products a new application or changes them in some way, addcycling aims to “add time” to a product, to extend its life cycle so that it may be used the way it was intended longer instead of being replaced, which is the definition of responsible use. Through the spread of addcycling not only overproduction but also downcycling will be greatly reduced.
In handwash.bg we believe that addcycling is the easiest, most responsible and correct approach to protect the environment. Caring for our belongings the way we should goes a long way towards reducing consumerism. That’s why we think our cleaning services are not only of the highest quality, but also a way to preserve our planet.
