In ‘up-cycling,’ what’s old is new again
New London — T-shirts can be made into braided rugs. Old jeans can be sewn into appliqué designs to spice up a stained sweatshirt. Scarves can hang on wire hangers and become a fan. Old liquor bottles can hold homemade cleaning supplies.
About a dozen members of a New London social entrepreneurship group gathered Sunday to show off their “up-cycled” projects as inspiration for the incoming makerspace boutique for recycled items that will soon take up two Golden Street storefronts.
“I build anything out of anything,” said Chris Barker, a Norwich resident who attend- ed the event Sunday morning to show off the floor lamp he is making out of an old Stonington streetlight. “Frugality is the path to the future.”
Sipping on coffee and munching on gluten- free breakfast foods, the “up-cy- clers” were hosted by ReInspire, an organization founded to help people make craft goods from recycled materials.
They used things like thrift store clothes, old suitcases and plywood to make new products to either sell or donate.
Barker works for an Eversource contractor, and picked up the old streetlight on the job. He replaced the light bulb and some of the wiring, and
“That’s what it all boils down to. Helping the environment, saving some money and making stuff out of other stuff.” CHRIS BARKER OF NORWICH
soon it will make for a retro floor lamp somewhere, he said.
“That’s what it all boils down to,” he said. “Helping the environment, saving some money and making stuff out of other stuff.”
ReInspire shares the 13 Golden St. storefront with Spark Makerspace, a cooperative workshop that will eventually become an incubator for businesses or artists looking for a place to get their start.
Hannah Gant and George Ryan have spent more than a year developing the makerspace, and will soon open an art studio and workspace in the former El ‘n’ Gee nightclub building.
That building will open in the next few months, and Gant said she expect 50 people already active in the community to become members, allowing them to rent space, tools and materials for their projects.
After that, she said, it can only grow.
“This is … pushing the frontier of the sharing economy,” she said.
For now, the organizers are trying to expand the community of artists and craftspeople who could use the space with events like Sunday’s “up-cycling brunch.”
Betty Howard, of Groton, showed off a collection of liquor bottles she uses to hold the cleaning products she makes in her house and sells online and at stores in Connecticut and Rhode Island.
“It’s kind of become an obsession — how up-cycled I can get,” she said. Howard collected more than 500 bottles before she began selling her products, and now profits off sales and refills.
The business is called The Unless Project, named for a line from the Dr. Seuss book “The Lorax” that Howard paraphrased Sunday.
“Unless someone cares, nothing’s going to change,” she said.