Upcycling, recycling, and downcycling. Is there any problem with downcycling?
UPCYCLING:
Upcycling is the process of transforming by-products, waste, or useless products into new materials or better-quality products. Waste is avoided because instead of producing new materials, the ones already existing are used.
The great advantage of this process is that it does not require energy and/or any other processes to transform the materials.
On this matter, the upcycling process comes very close to the ideal proposed by the circular economy, where nothing is lost, rather everything is reused.
DOWNCYCLING:
Downcycling is referred to the process which transforms products that at the end of their life have no way to go back to being what they were, into another product of inferior quality.
The advantage of downcycling is that no new raw material is used, but energy is used to reprocess the material.
RECYCLING:
Recycling is the process in which a product that is discarded is processed again and returns to what it was.
In this case, as well as downcycling, raw material is saved, but energy is spent to transform the material.
Downcycling has several advantages: on the one hand, the use of the materials already used entails substantial economic savings, since it is not necessary to resort to the extraction of raw material to produce new products. On the other hand, a reduction in pollution and energy saving is achieved with downcycling.
However, new products created using this method cannot be recycled again. So, a sustainable life cycle is not obtained in the materials used, but their transformation into waste is delayed (a delay that can vary depending on the product, usability, material, etc.).
For this reason, downcycling is not actually an option to achieve the objectives of a circular economy in construction, the product elaborated with this process, when it becomes a waste will never re-entry in the cycle.
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