Get one up on Rumpelstiltskin by turning plastic shopping sacks into uber-artsy bookmarks. I really hate giving cash gifts. Gift cards aren’t much higher on the “Hey, I burned lots of calories thinking of you” scale. Even when the card’s end use fits the user, it’s still not very satisfying for me (wow, so it is always about […]
Just because incandescent light bulbs are less energy efficient than CFLs doesn’t mean you need to toss them. Upcycle them! IKEA Israel won’t even sell incandescent light bulbs any more, and people are gradually switching to more energy efficient compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs). No need to toss the baby out with the bathwater, though – […]
Before grabbing another polluting plastic bag, learn how to easily make a cloth bag out of items you already have lying around. Sustainable Israeli designer Aya Tager will be giving upcycling workshops in Tel Aviv in a couple weeks, but for those who can’t make it she is giving an online workshop right here on […]
Sustainable designer Aya Tager will teach upcycling workshops this month so that the lighting miracle of Hannukah can continue beyond the holiday’s 8 days. The Jewish holiday of Hannukah celebrates the miracle of a single day’s supply of oil lasting for eight days of lighting, and is beloved by environmentalists who appreciate the energy efficiency […]
Made by artisans who receive fair wages while upcycling metal products, this bike chain menorah is sustainable for people and the environment. In our recent survey of sustainably designed Hannukah menorahs, we featured menorahs (and other light fixtures) made locally in Israel. Not all Jews have the luxury of being in an area where Judaica […]
Shoppers at Zerim-Liftan’s specialty store will never know what layout design to expect, as it is modular and ever-changing. The modular design concept – which is sustainable as it saves the resources that would otherwise be used to create multiple objects from scratch – has been applied to all kinds of designs. It has been […]
Can’t find your old Hannukah menorah? Israeli designers come up with clever alternatives. With the Jewish Hannukah holiday only a few weeks away, many Jews in the Middle East and elsewhere are anxiously waiting to eat sufganiot (jelly doughnuts) and searching their closets and cupboards for their Hannukah menorahs. In case they can’t be found, […]
A team of two designers, Godspeed, will be creating furniture from raw and trashed materials in Jaffa within the framework of a single hour. Pop-up stores may not sound like the most sustainable ventures, but the pop-up shop that will open in Jaffa on December 1st and feature the work of the Godspeed design team […]
One way to make musical performances more sustainable is to use renewable energy (such as human cyclists, for example) to power them, but what about making the music itself more sustainable? What is the carbon footprint for making a piano or a guitar?
Colorful plastic bags are both the canvas and the paints in Aviva Sawicki’s artworks. Plastic bags are a ubiquitous and un-eco-friendly material that many sustainable and upcycling designers have tried to reuse. One designer has turned plastic bags into shoes, another has made plastic bag wallets, and plastic bags can even be used as crocheting […]
Origami and some creativity saved these Earl Grey tea bag wrappers from the recycling bin and made them functional again. We are constantly surrounded by paper. It is in our mailboxes, surrounding our dry food items, and pretty much everywhere. It is all too easy to toss unwanted or used papers into a wastepaper basket […]
Used copper bullets found at a firing range transform into sculptural objects incorporated into rings. Bullets are, objectively, ugly things. They have an ugly purpose, and are not much to look at, either. But what would happen if you removed a bullet from its violent context? Could it be beautiful? Israeli designer Adi Zaffran Weisler […]
Made mostly from used and vintage scraps of fabric, Timo Handmade’s new creations have a warm, old-world feel. Fabric scraps can be used for lots of things, and we’ve seen designers refashion them in all kinds of ways – like use them to make repurposed fabric shoes, purses made from upholstery fabric samples, and even […]
Hipcycle, a new online marketplace for upcycled products, shows mainstreamers that upcycling can be hip. Shopping local and sustainable is always best, but when you can’t find locally made, sustainably made, or upcycled products around – sometimes the internet is the best way to go. Online marketplaces such as Etsy, Mideast ecostore Ekotribe, or the […]
We already know what plastic bottle trees look like, how will 10 newspaper trees look? For Christmas last year, Israeli artist Hadas Itzcovitch gifted her city of Haifa a tree made from 5480 upcycled plastic bottles (pictured above). Constructed immediately after the disastrous Carmel region fires broke out and destroyed so many trees, Itzcovitch’s tree […]
Studio Ubico has upcycled found wooden pieces back into their original form, a tree. Studio Ubico, an upcycling and environmentally conscious design studio working in Tel Aviv, joins the ranks of other sustainable designers who are trying to make good use out of materials that are already sourced (instead of going out and taking more […]
PET bottles hark back to their glass bottle predecessors using traditional glass blowing techniques. Plastic bottles have pretty nasty reputations for being bad for human health and the environment. Very few people are arguing that plastic bottles (and especially bottled water) are a good thing in the long run. Some companies, such as Israeli fashion […]
To all of you out there who used to make seashell necklaces on the beach as kids – did you ever think of making one of these? Beautiful beaches can be found all over the Middle East, but unfortunately many of them are plagued by unnatural waste. During the hot summer months it is a […]
Candlesticks that have lost their partners find a home in this upcycled menorah. Most flea markets and second-hand stores have them – candlesticks either with or without their partners. Solitary candlesticks often tend to be left behind, since they usually come in pairs. But thanks to this menorah design from Reddish Studio (the same people […]
From small-scale butterflies to large horses, Reuven Fields’ scrap metal sculptures breathe life into discarded pieces. It takes a lot of energy to mine metals from the earth, and significantly less energy to recycle metals into something new. But if you can upcycle used metal scraps into something else (such as an upcycled aluminum can […]
Yoav Avinoam's sawdust benches and stools are made from the remains from someone else's... well... benches and stools.
Royally save resources with Green Queen’s eco friendly design products. Green Prophet has encountered several green royals over the past few years, between Jordan’s Queen Rania helping organic farmers and lobbying for environmental education, and H.E. Sheikh Abdulaziz Al Nuaimi (aka The Green Sheikh) penning a monthly column for this very site. But there’s a […]
Yaniv’s surprisingly colorful dolls are made solely from scraps of newspaper (and no paint!). Israeli artist Liat Yaniv‘s creativity – like that of many before here – was fueled by a shortage of materials and resources. When she was an art student in Denmark she had limited funds, and so she began to find ways […]
Singular upcycled wooden boxes called “Frank” combine to create larger design pieces. Tel Aviv has been fortunate enough to experience a recent influx of sustainable design studios, creating anything from rotary telephone desk lamps to wood veneer light fixtures. These studios are slowly bringing upcycled and sustainable design to the mainstream, and two new girls […]
Chafic Abi Abdallah used to work in the hospitality industry, but grew weary of sitting in front of the computer for twelve hours a day. So he set out on a trip to Southeast Asia to clear his mind and dream up more hands-on and community-oriented job prospects. During his journey throughout India, Cambodia and […]