Give it a new lease of life - Upcycle!
A blog post for Green Earth Plan by Jan Macavoy - April 2021
“One man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure”
Re-cycling, upcycling or re-purposing; call it what you will, but it’s always been something I just love doing! Writing this article forced me to sit back and think why this has been a passion for as long as I can remember? What started me on this mission and where did the inspiration come from?
Jan still uses the same sewing machine she bought at aged 16!
Looking back, my parents lived through the second war and both had come from large families where money was always tight. “Make do and mend” were comments that I heard throughout my childhood and “You never know when that [whatever “that” might be] will come in handy”! My Dad was also good with his hands and at taking on a challenge; for example building a cold frame to get the vegetable plants off to an early start or fixing up a couple of Lambretta motor scooters for my older sister and her boyfriend. If something didn’t work, Dad would always “take a look at it” and try and fix it, rather than replace it. Just binning something was never an option. Dad had a shed full of old sweet tins full of screws, nuts and bolts and bits of wood of varying sizes.
My mum was very capable with her sewing machine and a pair of knitting needles and as well as creating clothes from new, would often unpick an old jumper and fashion it into a new jumper or alter a dress or skirt. If any item of clothing were destined for the bin, or more likely the “rag bag”, she would always take the zip or buttons off so they could be reused at some point. Mum had sweet tins full of assorted buttons, zips or fixings and bags of off cuts of material and mismatched balls of wool!
From a very, early age I started to sew and at 16 decided to buy my very own sewing machine; one that had a zig zag function and could also do basic embroidery. It was a “New Home” model and cost £44. Forty nine years later I still have the same machine and now it costs me more to have it serviced that it did to buy it! It doesn’t have lots of fancy functions, but it is robust [made of cast iron] and sews like a dream. Creating an item of clothing or a piece of furnishing like a pair of curtains from a piece of material is really rewarding, but even more so if I’m repurposing a piece of fabric or maybe using up scraps of material that would normally be considered waste. My current project is recovering the cushions for a pair of cane chairs using the material from a pair of curtains.
“My dad always said “One man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure” and he was absolutely right. Just because I can’t find a use for something, it doesn’t mean it’s of no use to anyone else. As part of the Green Earth Plan commitment to help reduce waste, over the coming months I will share some of the recycling or repurposing ideas I have had and how they can be copied or adapted; but for now I’m off to unpick a pair a curtains for my next project!”
During the very first lockdown, like the rest of the nation I was keen to support the NHS teams who were struggling with this deadly virus and desperate for scrubs, I joined the legion of people who were busy sewing and made 26 pairs of scrubs. Most of them were made from donated duvets and sheets or whatever suitable material I could get my hands on!
Whenever I look at something that is about to be binned, my first thoughts are almost always can I reuse this for something? Thankfully, Roy my husband is also keen and able to help try and reuse materials; together we have completed some significant projects. The latest of which was taking a pine wardrobe that had bowed during storage and as such unable to be re-built and creating 2 storage units for his daughter’s hall!
In the summer we built a garden shed using a couple of old fence panels, a table-top and reclaimed wood. The only items we had to buy were roofing felt, screws [lots of!], a pair of hinges and a tin of paint. It certainly required a lot of imagination and vision, but the finished article sits robustly at the bottom of the garden and most importantly, doesn’t leak!
Earth concious Chelsea in the upcycled sarong dress she co-designed with Jan!
For the best part of 25 years, I had a sarong that had been given to me. I kept it wrapped in a drawer and from time to time would think about it and wonder what I could do with it. It was too good to throw out. I knew I could do something with it, but what? Anyway, just before Christmas I saw a friend and her 9-year-old [going on 19-year-old!] daughter and just knew it would make a lovely dress for her. Together Chelsea and I designed a dress for her; I was pretty chuffed as I had to make my own pattern and then I went to work. We were all really pleased with the finished article. Chelsea, being founder of Chelsea’s Litter Club is really into finding ways of helping to protect our planet, so thrilled with the idea of upcycling as well as getting a new dress, just in time for Christmas!
So, whatever you call it, upcycling, recycling or repurposing it’s fun and really rewarding knowing that something isn’t going to end up in land fill or that from something you thought you had no use for, you have a new and useful item. There are things that I really don’t have a need for and can’t think of a future use and I either take them up to the local charity shop or advertise as free on our local neighbourhood site. My dad always said “One man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure” and he was absolutely right. Just because I can’t find a use for something, it doesn’t mean it’s of no use to anyone else.
In the UK, we send over 15 million tonnes of rubbish from our homes to landfill every year which is the equivalent in weight of burying over 100,000 adult blue whales. This is a very scary fact and reminds us of what a huge impact our collective bins filled with waste have over the course of a year! Knowing this keeps me motivated to keep upcycling and I hope I can inspire others to do the same. For more facts about waste visit the Friends of the Earth.
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