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| Chinese and UK college students and teachers work on their upcycling designs in Changsha, Hunan province. (China Daily) |
The term upcycling first appeared about two decades ago in the West.
Upcycling has enjoyed rapid development in the past three years, widely applied in the small artisan sector in Europe and the US, according to Angus Bjarnason, director of British Council Guangzhou Office.
For example, the number of products on Etsy.com, a US e-commerce site, tagged with the word "upcycled" increased from about 7,900 in January 2010 to nearly 30,000 a year later - an increase of 275 percent. In April 2013, that number increased by a whopping 879 percent to 263,685.
In China, upcycling is unknown among the public and lacking in commercial application. But both Zhang and Bjarnason believe in the development potential of upcycling.
"China is the world's factory, a powerhouse of manufacturing industries. There is a lot of industrial waste and leftovers waiting to be upcycled," Zhang says.
"And traditional Chinese culture promotes a thrift lifestyle of reusing old objects. For example, parents will save their elder children's clothes for the younger ones to wear."
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