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Your home isn’t just your physical address — it stretches far beyond the four walls of your house. We all live on Earth, and caring for it is essential. There are many ways to go about it, and one of them can make you some pretty nice cash on the side. 

 

Upcycling involves taking something that's no longer being used and repurposing it to give it a second life and function. The finished product is more functional, valuable, and beautiful than it was before. Rather than simply recycling or refurbishing an item, you’re finding a new use for it, keeping it out of the landfill.

 

Many people upcycle items for their own purposes, like when they use old milk jugs as flower planters or knot old clothing into placemats and rugs. But can upcycling be profitable? With a good idea and some careful planning, the answer is a resounding yes.
 

How Upcycling Came to Be

Upcycling has always been around, but the concept as we know it today started to become popular in the 90s and entered the mainstream in 2002. The movement really gained traction after the global financial crisis of 2008, when people sought creative and less expensive ways to acquire goods. 

 

Realizing that it could be cheaper to figure out how to reuse an item than to buy something new outright, people found that upcycling helped them redecorate, add to their wardrobe, and even make money when times were tough. Around that time, Etsy, the popular handmade goods site, saw a 275% increase in the number of items tagged with the term “upcycled,” going from 7,900 in January 2010 to almost 30,000 the next year. 

 

A Wide Range of Benefits

Aside from helping the environment and saving money, why do people upcycle? The trend is now a legitimate business strategy, providing the economy with a boost due to a boom in upcycling sales. 

 

In 2013, upcycling was generating more than $14 billion a year in revenue and had created more than 170,000 jobs. Since then, those numbers have only gone up — and so has the amount of waste diverted from landfills.

 

Starting an Upcycling Business

Whether you're looking at starting your own business or selling some repurposed items on the side, it's important to understand how the upcycling industry works. There's a large market for eco-friendly products —  a whopping 87% of millennials are willing to pay more when a product is sustainably made. Innovative ideas for new upcycled products can both fill a market need and reduce your business's environmental impact.

 

How to Sell Upcycled Items

Before you dip a toe into upcycling, you'll want to determine your niche. Ask yourself what items you might be able to upcycle or what end product you want to sell. You can upcycle just about anything — you’re limited only to your imagination with what you can create. Once you have an idea, there are a few specific steps you can take to ensure your new venture will be profitable. 

 

First, you'll want to scour garage sales, junkyards, and other places for discarded items that might be useful. You'll need a steady stream of materials to keep your business going. Look for items that cost as little as possible — free is great. You’ll want to save your budget for the other materials you'll need to create the new item, such as paint. 

 

You’ll also need to consider ongoing costs, which include regular business costs such as advertising, as well as the cost to store any items you've created until they sell. 

 

After you've mastered your upcycled product, you’ll need a place to sell it. Facebook, Instagram, Etsy, eBay, Craigslist, Amazon, or your own website can help provide consumers easy access to your products. Local craft shows can also be lucrative places to sell at — with the added benefit of helping you save on shipping costs. 

 

Ideas for Upcycled Products

Many people start upcycling as a hobby, doing things like making jewelry out of old board game pieces or creating artwork from old scraps of paper. For those looking to start a business in upcycling, here are some of the most profitable niches to explore. 

 

Furniture & Decor

In the furniture upcycling business, many people refurbish an old item to make it look new again, but this niche has the potential to be so much more than that. Taking an old tire and adding a plywood top, then wrapping it in twine creates a rustic side table or footrest while refinishing a large cable spool for use as a coffee table is another option. 

 

Many furniture upcyclers use pallets to create tables or chairs. Some also use old items to create decor pieces such as one-of-a-kind shelving or containers for flowers or other items. The HGTV show Flea Market Flip has helped this niche gain popularity. 

 

Clothing & Textiles

Some clothing brands, like Eileen Fisher, use their returned, discarded, or unsellable products and repurpose them into entirely new clothing items. Then there's Hôtel Vetements, which creates one-of-a-kind pieces out of used curtains from French hotels, or Sword and Plough, which uses old military uniforms to create unique bags of all kinds. 

 

Clothing upcyclers have successfully found ways to offer consumers added value in addition to the normal function, look, and quality of premium clothing, making it a profitable niche. 

 

Food 

The upcycling food industry was worth an estimated $46.7 billion in 2019, and it is still growing. Upcycling food may sound a bit unappetizing, but it's not what you think. With food upcycling, businesses take food that would typically go to waste and repurpose it into other products. 

 

One example comes from Barnana. They buy the spotty, brown bananas that don’t sell well, helping to keep food waste down and allowing them to source ingredients at a much lower cost than usual. They then dehydrate them to turn them into snacks like chips and banana brittle. 

 

Some food upcyclers get really creative, using products that would otherwise be thrown out to create their art pieces.

 

Odds & Ends

While it's not a specific niche, odds and ends encompass all the other random things businesses find to upcycle. The possibilities are endless in this category, from supplies to final creation. Turn old typewriter keys into necklaces, old wine bottles into wine glasses, used guitar picks into earrings, seatbelts and candy wrappers into purses, and so on. You could even work on larger projects — there's an entire house in Houston covered in recycled beer cans to cut down on energy costs!

 

Miniwiz Can Help You Reach Your Upcycling Goals

If you're serious about getting into the upcycling business, consider Miniwiz. We offer the upcycling solutions you need for your business or organization. Our mission is to help you learn to use upcycled or recycled materials in a way that makes your business more sustainable. 

 

With our projects, you can transform industrial and household waste into useful products that consumers want. Contact us today for more information.

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