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There is a fair amount of confusion about what upcycling is and how it differs from recycling. The more familiar term, recycling, refers to the process of breaking products down to their basic materials, which then are used to make new products. Upcycling aims to preserve the value of the original materials and turn them into new products that have more embodied value than the originals.

Another term to be familiar with when it comes to upcycled building materials, is embodied value is the sum total of the value added to products at every stage of their production, from acquisition of raw materials, through the manufacturing process, to transportation, sale, and use—monetary costs, labor, and everything else that goes into them.

Then, of course, there is downcycling, which also breaks products down to their basic materials and transforms them into a lower-value version of the same products. Relatively little of the recycling that occurs today is upcycling.

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What Are Upcycled Building Materials?: 5 Principles of Upcycling

Five key principles emerge from the existing research on upcycling:

• Upcycling involves the use of waste.
• That waste is adapted for repurposing through a process of creative transformation.
• The old materials are present in the new product, in one form or another.
• Upcycling is value-driven to produce an end product that conveys value.
• Upcycling contributes to a slow, circular material cycle.

Together, these principles make it possible to extend the life of natural resources and materials as long as possible, keeping them out of the nation’s landfills.

What Construction Materials Can Be Upcycled?

With a little ingenuity and a commitment to reducing waste, there are relatively few construction materials that can’t be recycled or downcycled, but finding cost-effective ways to upcycle them on a large scale is a different matter. Upcycled building materials used in construction materials are more common in Europe than in North America. Here are some examples of how upcycled construction materials currently are being used in new construction, here and in other parts of the world.

• Plastic shingles made from upcycled PVC windows and gutters. PVC window frames, downspouts, and gutters salvaged from demolition projects and collected from neighborhood recycling centers are shredded and formed into diamond-shaped exterior cladding shingles that are more valuable than the original PVC items.
• K-Briq looks and performs like normal clay brick but with better insulation characteristics. Composed of 90% construction and demolition waste, it generates 10% less in carbon emissions during manufacturing than occurs in the manufacture of traditional clay brick.
• In Austin, Texas, an old warehouse was demolished and replaced with a smaller, multi-tenant office building constructed by recycling 100% of the material and fixtures from the old structure. Anything not upcycled as materials for constructing the office building was reused as decorative elements.