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Advantages & Disadvantages of Downcycling

The environmental industry is interested in finding ways to reuse or repurpose waste. Recycling is a common process for turning old items into newly restored products of adequate quality. Downcycling is the process of recycling something into a lower-quality, or downgraded, version. Downcycled items may no longer be viable as full functioning products, but they can still be used in other ways.

  1. Advantage: Eliminating Waste

    • Although you may not end up with a premium quality product after the original item is recycled, downcycling still allows industries to eliminate waste. Downcycled products are repurposed so that they don't contribute to landfills, where they remain unused. Any form of re-use of a product -- even a lesser quality one -- is better than allowing the original item to stay in a landfill as waste.

    Advantage: Saving Resources

    • When a product is downcycled, a new item is formed out of the old, pre-existing materials, thereby saving natural resources. The result is that raw materials do not have to be used to create those new products, because the products are already being created by the recycled materials. This means that fewer trees have to be cut down, less water has to be wasted, and less energy has to be used to go into manufacturing something that is brand new.

    Disadvantage: Level of Quality

    • The level of quality serves as a disadvantage to downcycling. A paper cup, for instance, may not be able to be re-used as a cup in its post-recyclable afterlife because the quality of the paper will not be suitable to withstand the pressure of liquid beverages. Instead, the paper cup may have to be converted into regular paper and turned into a notepad. This means that raw materials may still need to be used in order to re-create the original product -- in this example, more paper cups.

    Disadvantage: Consumer Instinct

    • Another drawback for downcycling is that along with the lower grade of quality, consumers may not want to spend money on recycled materials for fear that they will not function the way they are supposed to. Consumer instincts also make purchasing decisions based on how recycled products look. The appearance of downcycled items may not be as attractive as products made from raw materials, which means more consumers will be inclined to buy new, as opposed to used.

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