Upcycling as a manifestation of consumer and business behavior that expresses sustainable consumption and determines the functioning of the communal services sector

Abstract

The article addresses the issue of upcycling as a new pattern of consumer behaviour, enabling the production of new goods from the previously used products, which prolongs their life. Such behaviour also leads to a reduction in the use of new products on a market basis and reduces the need to throw things out that have lost their former usefulness. Creativity is an important element of upcycling, which allows us to find new uses for things, which have previously been treated as useless rubbish or waste.

Increasingly, large corporations take the example from individual and undertake activities related to upcycling of their products or convert things which have so far been treated as waste into starting material for manufacturing products. The activities described earlier are strengthened by the media, which promote the ideas of upcycling as a modern form of business, art and a new pattern of sustainable consumption. The following paper attempts to address these perspectives and indicates the opportunities and threats that are brought about by this phenomenon for the functioning of the communal services sector.