Upcycling is the process of converting waste materials or useless products
into new materials or products of better quality or a higher environmental value.

Upcycling is the opposite of downcycling, which is the other half of the recycling process. Downcycling involves converting materials and products into new materials of lesser quality. Most recycling involves converting or extracting useful materials from a product and creating a different product or material.^[2]

Upcycling… it’s a rapidly growing trend.  Upcycling was featured on CBC Radio overnight this morning (02/14/2011).

via Google Trends: upcycling