Nice-Cycling: Giving Stuff Up For Good

By Linton Weeks

Published October 16, 2013 at 11:11 AM EDT

First there was recycling — reusing old material instead of throwing it away.

Then came: Upcycling — remaking something in a way that increases its value or quality, like scissoring ratty old T-shirts into yarn to knit a new bath mat. Downcycling — remaking something in a way that decreases its value or quality, like refashioning a flannel sheet into a "family cloth." And hipcycling — in which one person's trash becomes a hipster's treasure, such as whisky bottles retooled into bangle bracelets and bike chain plates repurposed as earrings.

Now comes the practice of taking old things and using them for good causes. Let's call it nice-cycling. Here are a few examples:

The Giving Keys in Los Angeles – The idea: Collect old keys; hire homeless people to engrave sweet words, such as FAITH, HOPE and LOVE, on the keys; sell the recycled keys on necklaces and use the profits to help the homeless people get keys — to a house or apartment — of their own.

Blue Jeans Go Green in New York City – Developed by America's cotton producers and importers, the program takes in used denim blue jeans and turns the material into insulation "to be distributed to help communities in need."

Global Soap Project in Norcross, Ga. — Dedicated to improving health around the world, this group takes in bits and pieces of bar soap from hotels and other places, remakes them into new bars of soap and ships the soap bars to people who really need them.

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