Quick Key Facts
- Upcycling is the reusing of discarded objects, materials and other waste, for repurposing into something new of higher value and different use.
- Upcycling reduces waste in landfills, where products take forever to break down and emit greenhouse gases while they do. Upcycling plastic in particular also reduces pollution from manufacturing and conserves resources, as it reduces the need for new plastic products.
- Upcycling is more environmentally friendly than recycling, which uses more energy (which means fossil fuels), water and other resources in its processes of breaking down. Recycling also is now found to release large amounts of microplastics into the environment.
- Some things that can be upcycled into other goods are: cardboard, glass, plastic, metal and tin cans, wood, paper, styrofoam and other non-biodegradable packaging, and clothing.
- Upcycling food waste is a process being utilized to create new food and beverage products, as well as others that utilize the oils in wastewater from food processing facilities to make fertilizer, cosmetics, feed and energy, which eliminates the need for wastewater treatment facilities.
- Indirectly, objects that are upcycled help reduce the energy and water needed to manufacture new materials.
- There are companies who are now trying to take care of construction and demolition waste, which amounts to 600 million tons of debris a year with new innovative and functional building design products made with debris.
- Upcycling in the fashion industry is one of its hottest current trends.
What Is Upcycling?
Many of us are familiar with the phrase, “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” in terms of sustainability, but it’s become apparent that “Reduce, Reuse, and Repurpose” might be a smarter avenue in terms of reducing waste streams.
Right now globally, 2.12 billion tons of waste is dumped annually. Many industries, particularly textiles, contribute not only to microplastic pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, but also poisonous gases in the atmosphere.
Doubling down on not always purchasing new things helps to reduce waste and conserve valuable resources.
Upcycling is the process of using items that might be discarded to create a new use for them, often one with higher value. It’s currently being done in fashion, with household items, plastic waste and other areas with creativity and innovation by households and businesses.
History and Evolution of Upcycling
While the term “upcycle” didn’t make its way onto the scene until the 1990s, the concept could be as ancient as the stone tools that prehistoric humans may have reused for both practical and nostalgic reasons.
During World War II, Britain mandated clothes rationing because many supplies were used to produce war uniforms, and about a quarter of the British population was involved in war efforts. As a response, they created a “Make-Do and Mend” campaign to help citizens creatively figure out ways to make their clothes last longer.
Because supplies were so scarce, it became important to repair, recycle and make clothes from scratch. Women couldn’t buy fabric, and often had to resort to using household textiles like curtains and tablecloths. Sometimes parachute silk was used for underwear, nightgowns and wedding dresses.
In the 50s and 60s, upcycling entered the art scene with avant garde artists that will be discussed below.
When the UK faced a major recession in the 80s and 90s, upcycling or “customizing” became popular again, with many youth upcycling second-hand clothes.
The first mention of the term upcycling appears in a 1994 article in the architecture magazine Salvo, where mechanical engineer Reiner Pilz stated, “I call recycling down-cycling. What we need is up-cycling, thanks to which old products are given a higher, not a lower, value.”
The word upcycling then emerged and became popular in 1998 in Gunter Pauli’s book Upcycling: The Road to Zero Emissions, More Jobs, More Income and No Pollution.
Now upcycling is emerging through the lens of climate change, and with concern for how waste impacts the natural environment.
While many are creating an industry around it globally in developed nations, some are introducing it as an industry in developing nations.
Upcycling and the Environment
Upcycling has a number of positive direct and indirect environmental impacts.
First and Foremost, Upcycling Reduces What Ends up in Landfills
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 292 million tons of municipal solid waste was generated in 2018. Of this total only 94 million tons was recycled, 25 million tons was composted, and another 17 million tons of food was managed with other methods.
That still leaves a whopping 152 million tons of waste in the landfills generating greenhouse gases as they slowly break down, and increasing plastic pollution in the environment.
Upcycling Reduces the Extraction of Natural Resources
When you upcycle, you reduce the need to extract raw materials like steel, oil, lumber, forest resources, plastic, natural gas, coal and minerals to create something new. It also reduces the need for synthetic materials which are made from petrochemicals and not readily biodegradable.
It also helps you reduce water use. Textiles and garments alone are the second most water-consuming industry, with every process of manufacturing dependent on it from dyes, specialty chemicals and washing and rinsing.
Upcycling Lowers Carbon Emissions, Because of Less Manufacturing
According to the EPA, in 2019 the industry sector produced 23% of carbon emissions in the processing of raw materials into a finished product.
While recycling is better than going to the landfill, and it produces less greenhouse gas emissions than manufacturing of new materials, it still produces carbon emissions.
Upcycling and the Fashion Industry
Fashion, particularly fast fashion, is one of the largest issues of pollution in landfills.
Globally, about 85% of clothes ends up in landfills or burned. Many of these clothes are not recyclable in the first place, since plastic and synthetic fibers like polyester, nylon and acrylics are made from crude oil, which makes them impossible to reuse in other ways.
An estimated 13 million tons of textile waste a year comes from the manufacturers themselves, as well as retailers with the fashion industry contributing roughly 10% of all global carbon emissions and with plastic fibers in the clothes contributing to microplastic pollution.
Currently, there is a rise in the Zero Waste Fashion sector, with upcycling fashion brands emerging, many of them luxury brands.
In Asia, Cambodian company Tonlé sifts through leftover fabrics from large garment factories, using larger pieces to make new clothes, and smaller pieces for spinning into yarn for new designs. In Hong Kong, the brand Heritage ReFashioned makes luxury handbags with upcycled vintage textiles from China, Japan and Southeast Asia. Their mission is to turn forgotten textiles, like Japanese Kimono silk, into something more valuable.
In New York, Zero Waste Daniel by Daniel Silverstein uses fabric scraps to make custom clothing lines that look like mosaics. Zero Waste Daniel also has a buy back program.
RE/DONE is an online luxury label that features pieces made with reconstructed vintage sweaters, sweatshirts and denim.
Founded by surfer Kelly Slater, the brand Outerknown has a selection of upcycled items that involve upcycled cotton, recycled polyester and other materials. Their other clothing is Blue-sign certified, which means no harmful chemicals are used in its manufacturing process.
There are other more established brands doing upcycled lines.
Patagonia offers ReCrafted, which is clothing made exclusively from Patagonia products that have been brought back to the company through its Worn Wear Program.
Denim brands like Levi’s and Madewell allow customers to return old jeans so that the company can give them new life as something different. Denim collected by Madewell is upcycled into insulation for construction. Levi’s also offers instructions on how to repurpose their denim.
Coach also has (Re)Loved, an initiative in which consumers can shop pre-used Coach bags or even trade in their used bags so that they can be remade into a new design.
Upcycling and Art
In the early 1900s, French artist Marcel Duchamps coined the term “found art” or “ready-mades” where he created art from what was considered trash and other discarded items. This was later adopted widely by other artists in the Dada movement, a European avant-garde movement that emerged during World War I and would eventually give way to the Junk Art Movement of the 1950s.
Artist Robert Rauschenberg was a popular artist on that scene and was best known for making hybrid painting-sculptures he called “combines” out of litter from New York’s city streets – lightbulbs, chairs, tires, umbrellas, street signs and cardboard boxes.
In the 1960s, Franco-American artist Arman created a series called “Accumulations,” where he aggregated trash in airtight glass boxes to comment on a society in which everything seems disposable after a single use.
Contemporary artists have also employed other methods now to comment on the waste crisis through art, like Brazillian artist Vik Muniz, whose artistic project Waste Land used the trash from the world’s largest landfill in Rio to create pieces of art that featured renderings of the garbage pickers, with the goal to sell and donate all the proceeds back to them.
In the end he was able to raise $250,000 that went to the Association of Recycling Pickers of Jardim Gramacho to build houses and improve infrastructure.
Currently the upcycled art movement seeks to specifically help eliminate waste while creating art. One artist, Wim Delvoye, does an intricate carving of tires.
In Canada, artist Angie Quintilla Coates makes reclaimed art pieces like vases and lamp bases out of old plastic shampoo bottles, laundry detergent containers, mouthwash bottles and other items.
Upcycling Food Waste
About 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted annually, with food waste in landfills being one of the leading contributors of greenhouse gases. Upcycling food is one way to help reduce this waste stream.
The Upcycled Food Association (UFA) defines upcycled foods as those that “use ingredients that otherwise would not have gone to human consumption, are procured and produced using verifiable supply chains, and have a positive impact on the environment.”
Many companies use imperfect fruits and vegetables that wouldn’t be sold to market as they are, or to create other products like soups, sauces and chutneys. There are a number of brands now that also utilize it to create new food products like veggie chips and other snack foods in beverages.
There have also been a lot of innovations in upcycling food by using food byproducts left over during production.
Specialty spirit Wheyward Spirit utilizes whey, a liquid byproduct of cheese production.
The Supplant Company is creating sugars from fiber and upcycles the fiber-rich structural plant parts from agricultural side streams, such as straw and stalks, as well as cobs of corn, wheat and rice.
They claim it has the same texture and taste as cane sugar in baked goods and other treats. Since the ingredient is made from fiber, it retains certain beneficial fiber-based qualities: it is lower in calories, has a lower glycemic response and is a prebiotic.
The company Take Two makes upcycled barley milk, which is the first plant milk to utilize spent grain, of which over eight billion pounds is wasted annually from beer brewing processes.
Other companies are also creating new products while addressing socio-economic problems.
Australian company Aqua Botanical is working to create drinking water to combat water scarcity, by extracting, filtering and mineralizing the water used from the production of juice concentrate.
In West Africa, Sweet Benin is a company creating cashew apple juice. Only 10 percent of the nearly 280 million pounds of cashew apples are processed in Benin every year, contributing to massive amounts of food waste. In 2018, the company produced 180,000 bottles of cashew apple juice and is working to help cashew farmers supplement their off-season income.
There are many others.
A 2021 study published in Food and Nutrition Sciences revealed that only 10% of consumers are familiar with upcycled food products, but once educated about them, 80% say that they would seek them out.
Upcycling and Architecture
The construction industry accounts for nearly 40% of waste generated globally with an estimated 35% ending up in landfills. It consists of a variety of rejected debris, including concrete, wood, bricks, glass and steel. In 2018, according to the EPA, the U.S. alone created 600 million tons of waste in this sector.
As many seek to be more sustainable, upcycling has also been making its way into architecture through creativity and innovation.
In Las Rasas, Madrid, eco-fashion pioneer Ecoalf and tech design studio Nagami created their Net Zero, Zero waste boutique by 3-D printing the interior with plastics, repurposing more than 33 tons of it. Every wall, shelf and display table inside the store is also made from recycled plastics.
The Sint Oelbert gymnasium school designed by Grosfeld Bekkers van der Velde Architecten is the first permanent structure that utilizes cladding created by Pretty Plastic. Cladding is used on exteriors of buildings to provide thermal insulation and weather resistance, and to improve the appearance of buildings. Pretty Plastic’s shingles use recycled PVC windows and gutters to create products that are wind and waterproof, fire-resistant and capable of withstanding extreme weather conditions.
Scottish start-up Kenoteq has also created the world’s first sustainable bricks. K-Briq are bricks that look and weigh as much as a typical brick and behave like a clay brick in terms of insulation, but are made of 90% construction and demolition waste and emit less than 10% of the carbon emissions of traditional brick production.
The EcoARK, an exhibition hall in Taiwan, is one of the first buildings made with Polli-bricks made from plastic bottles. The Polli-bricks are translucent and have a honeycomb interlocking structure. The building’s Polli-bricks consist of more than 1.5 million plastic bottles.
In 2018, to align with the opening of the NYCxDesign Festival, Zero Waste Bistro, a food pop-up, was created with materials built from recycled food and beverage cartons made by the Rewall Company, which has since been acquired by Continuous Materials, which specializes in making roof coverboards from plastic and paper waste.
Ecobricks are more of a DIY-structured solution, where households and communities can take empty plastic bottles and fill them with clear and dry used plastic waste. The bottles can later be used and built into cement for garden structures or other uses.
Not everyone agrees that this is useful, particularly those who believe that reducing and stopping the use and purchase of plastic is the better solution.
Ideas for Upcycling at Home
One of the great things about upcycling is it allows you to exercise your creativity when trying to create something new. D-I-Y ideas for upcycling items, particularly for the home, are exhaustive and can involve utilizing old jars, paint cans, wine bottles, clothing, broken dishes, old furniture and other objects to make candles, glasses, pendant lights, planters, wreaths, baskets, different furniture and more.
Check out a curated list of some ideas from EcoWatch here.
Here are some more from DIY Craftsy.
Upcycling Clothing
Many things can be done with clothing by either upcycling old clothes into a new outfits by dying, embroidering, turning them into quilts, scrunchies or tote bags, or using them to clean the house.
They could also be turned into more interesting items. Denim, for instance, can be made into coin purses, organizers, jewelry, upholstery and other useful things.
Some people are also using fabric and linens, alongside plastic, to create upcycled zero waste baskets. Here is a tutorial on how to make them.
For the Garden and Yard
Unique upcycling ideas for the yard include upcycled wood pallet planters, used door sheds and windchimes from utensils.
Here is a link to ideas from Sustain My Craft Habit, which says you don’t always just have to limit yourself to what’s at your house — you can also find items at neighborhood yard sales, Facebook Marketplace, Freecycle and thrift stores.
Upcycling Food at Home
There are many ways to use as much as you can, and extend certain products you buy. You can reuse leftover jar juices as marinades or vinaigrettes, turn stale bread into croutons, regrow foods like romaine and onions, to name a few.
Food Scraps as Fertilizer for Plants
Besides composting, certain kitchen scraps can make excellent fertilizer.
Banana peels are filled with potassium that helps plants grow flowers and fruit. You can apply it by liquifying the banana, or letting the peel decompose on the soil. You can also soak the peels overnight in water, and pour the water into the soil.
Coffee grounds are rich in nitrogen and other minerals plants like. It’s recommended that grounds be spread on alkaline soil or for acid-loving plants. A list of acid-loving plants can be found here.
Egg shells are an excellent source of calcium which can give plants a great boost. Crush them into a powder-like consistency and sprinkle on soil or around trees.
Upcycling Organizations and Businesses
Upcycled Food Association
An organization that is working to build a food system where all food is elevated to its best and highest use, has members internationally and offers Upcycled certification for products.
Upcycling Group
Collaborates with various entities to offer end-market solutions for waste materials such as LDPE bags and wraps, flexible film packaging, glass, bottles, beverage cartons, mixed plastics, paper, coffee and soda cups, hemp, solar panels and food waste.
Upcycle That
A website dedicated to ideas for what and how to upcycle fabric, glass, leather, metal, paper, plastic, rubber, wax and wood.
Upcycle Africa
An organization focused on re-orienting and re-educating African communities towards a greener future through the process of upcycling, where the community can reduce waste accumulation by transforming useless products, materials or energy into something functional.
Shop Repurpose
A nonprofit organization based in NYC that raises funds to support workforce development through the resale of high-end items in our online and Soho Vintage store.
Freecycle
A grassroots nonprofit movement of people who are giving and getting stuff for free in their own towns to keep good stuff out of landfills.
The post Upcycling 101: Everything You Need to Know appeared first on EcoWatch.
https://www.ecowatch.com/upcycling-facts-ecowatch.html
Ice loss from melting glaciers around the world due to global heating could cause pressure to be released from volcanic magma chambers located deep underground.
The process — already seen in Iceland — makes volcanic eruptions more frequent and powerful, according to new research conducted in the Chilean Andes.
“As glaciers retreat due to climate change, our findings suggest these volcanoes go on to erupt more frequently and more explosively,” said lead author of the research Pablo Moreno-Yaeger, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as The Guardian reported. “We found that following deglaciation, the volcano starts to erupt way more, and also changes composition.”
While eruptions are suppressed, magma melts crustal rocks, making the molten rock more viscous and setting the stage for it to be more explosive when it erupts.
Melting glaciers and ice caps could unleash wave of volcanic eruptions, study says
— The Guardian (@theguardian.com) July 7, 2025 at 7:18 PM
“Glacial loading and unloading can impact eruptive outputs at mid- to high-latitude arc volcanoes, yet the influence on magma storage conditions remains poorly understood. Mocho-Choshuenco volcano in the Andean Southern Volcanic Zone has been impacted by the advance and retreat of the Patagonian ice sheet,” the authors of the study wrote.
The findings of the study were presented on July 8 at the Goldschmidt Conference in Prague. The research suggests that hundreds of subglacial volcanoes that have been dormant — especially in Antarctica — have the potential to become active as glacial retreat accelerates under climate change, a press release from the Goldschmidt Conference said.
Since the 1970s, scientists have been aware of the link between increased volcanic activity and retreating glaciers in Iceland. However, this is among the first studies to examine this type of event in continental volcanic systems.
The findings could help scientists better comprehend, as well as predict, volcanic activity in glacial regions.
To study how past volcanic behavior was influenced by the retreat and advance of the Patagonian Ice Sheet, the researchers used crystal analysis and argon dating across six Chilean volcanoes, including now-dormant Mocho-Choshuenco.
Volcano paper alert
! Our new 40Ar/39Ar + 3He ages and magma compositions on Mocho-Choshuenco show an interesting behavior of the volcanic complex before, during, and following the Last Glacial Maximum. See here pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulle…
— Pablo Moreno-Yaeger (@pmorenoyaeger.bsky.social) June 7, 2024 at 6:45 PM
Through the analysis of erupted rock crystals and precisely dated earlier eruptions, the research team was able to track how the pressure and weight of glacial ice altered the characteristics of underground magma.
They discovered that thick ice cover at the peak of the last Ice Age roughly 26,000 to 18,000 years ago suppressed eruption volume, allowing a large silica-rich magma reservoir to accumulate 10 to 15 kilometers underground.
The sudden loss of weight from the rapidly melting ice sheet as the last Ice Age ended caused a relaxation of the crust and an expansion of gases in the magma. The pressure led to explosive volcanic eruptions deep within the reservoir, causing formation of the volcano.
“Glaciers tend to suppress the volume of eruptions from the volcanoes beneath them,” Moreno-Yaeger said. “The key requirement for increased explosivity is initially having a very thick glacial coverage over a magma chamber, and the trigger point is when these glaciers start to retreat, releasing pressure — which is currently happening in places like Antarctica.”
Moreno-Yaeger said the findings suggested the phenomenon wasn’t limited to Iceland, but could happen all over the world.
“Other continental regions, like parts of North America, New Zealand and Russia, also now warrant closer scientific attention,” Moreno-Yaeger said.
Although in geological terms the volcanoes’ response to glacial melt is almost instant, changes to the magma system are gradual, occurring over centuries, which provides some time for monitoring and warnings to be issued.
The team noted that an increase in volcanic activity could impact the whole planet. Eruptions release aerosols that can provide temporary cooling in the short-term. This was the case following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991. The explosion reduced global temperatures by roughly 0.5 degrees Celsius.
However, multiple eruptions have a reverse effect.
“Over time the cumulative effect of multiple eruptions can contribute to long-term global warming because of a buildup of greenhouse gases,” Moreno-Yaeger explained. “This creates a positive feedback loop, where melting glaciers trigger eruptions, and the eruptions in turn could contribute to further warming and melting.”
The post Melting Glaciers Could Lead to More Frequent and Explosive Volcanic Eruptions: Study appeared first on EcoWatch.
https://www.ecowatch.com/melting-glaciers-volcano-eruptions.html
Green Living
‘Poisoning the Well’ Authors Sharon Udasin and Rachel Frazin on PFAS Contamination and Why It ‘Has Not Received the Attention It Deserves’
In the introduction to Sharon Udasin and Rachel Frazin’s new book, Poisoning The Well: How Forever Chemicals Contaminated America, the authors cite an alarming statistic from 2015 that PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are present in the bodies of an estimated 97% of Americans. How did we ever get to this point? Their book is an attempt to explain that history, and to highlight those resisting the seeming inevitability of PFAS.
“I think we have the corporate cover-up and awareness on both the corporations’ and government’s part for decades upon decades,” said Udasin. “But we also see the power of regular people to effect change, to really bring about what politicians are not necessarily willing to do.”
The book tells stories of people deeply affected by ingesting PFAS, and the saga of how companies have been able to continue to churn out hundreds of different chemicals under the banner of PFAS, despite the risks and harms to human health. It is estimated that there may be at least 15,000 types of PFAS.
“These products are useful — waterproof stuff is nice to have, and there are other uses like medical and military uses that are very important,” said Frazin. “You know, preventing jet fuel fires is essential. But the price that we pay for all of that is the contamination in these communities.”
Udasin and Frazin, both reporters for The Hill, fanned out into four communities in the U.S. – in Alabama, Colorado, Maine and North Carolina. In Alabama, they found people ingesting industrial PFAS emanating from the very locations that employed them. In Maine, PFAS-contaminated sludge was spread over farmland.
“Colorado is a story of military contamination, in which area installations released PFAS-laden firefighting foam into the environment, enabling the chemicals to make their way into groundwater and then in the faucets of unsuspecting residents,” said Udasin.
In Alabama, Udasin said, “The death was so visible.” A key figure in the book is Brenda Hampton, an Alabama native who developed life-threatening illnesses that doctors suspected could be linked to toxic chemical exposure. “Brenda’s ‘death tour’ through the tiny twin towns of Courtland and North Courtland was particularly striking to me, because the extent of the damage was visible in such a compact space,” Udasin said.
New book spotlights ‘forever chemicals’ in North Alabama: ‘I know I’m facing death.’ www.al.com/news/huntsvi…
— Sharon Udasin (@sharonudasin.bsky.social) April 10, 2025 at 4:31 PM
Udasin’s reporting also helped reveal the ugly underside to rural areas of New England.
“Seeing the livelihoods of farmers ripped apart in the deceptively beautiful landscape of South and Central Maine allowed me to connect with both the people and natural beauty of that place — a place teeming with chemical contamination beneath its historic New England charm,” she said.
Alongside local reporting, the authors pored through documents looking for what Frazin called “needles in the haystack,” to unearth moments when companies – or the government – were aware of the potential toxic effects of PFAS but debated how to release that information.
“I believe we did have some original finds, including a document I dug up at the National Archives,” Frazin said, “where a doctor told the FDA that one of his patients who worked with Teflon was experiencing ‘angina-like’ symptoms. This document says the patient’s foreman told him the symptoms were caused by Teflon and that they all know about it.
“The corporations definitely had evidence of the adverse health impacts and ubiquity of PFAS for decades and still manufactured and sold PFAS-containing products,” she added.
Finds like these are highlighted throughout the book and tell the long and complicated story of the expansion of these “forever chemicals” into the world. The stories of death and illness are heartbreaking. But what Udasin and Frazin also discovered was that the crusade to break the hold of PFAS has become an ad-hoc national movement.
“I do think it’s become a grassroots national movement,” Udasin said, “because even all these local activists, they all know each other now, and they have created the National PFAS Coalition.
“When Brenda had her latest health incident, they were all from different sides of the country, getting together to check on her because they have created a national activist movement.”
Drinking water standards vary widely from state-to-state, which “creates an environmental justice issue, in which certain communities are less protected than others, through no fault of their own,” Udasin noted.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has currently issued PFAS drinking water regulations. Frazin said that “this rule is a massive deal that is likely to lead many communities to filter out PFAS from their drinking water. It would not be subject to enforcement yet because the rule first required water utilities to test for PFAS and then to install filters if it found levels of one of a few PFAS above a certain threshold.”
On top of this, Frazin noted that the Trump administration has reduced the types of PFAS that will be covered by this rule and that implementation will be delayed until 2031. Which, as Udasin noted, puts the onus more on states, “given the Trump administration’s decision to rescind and reconsider existing rules on drinking water standards.”
When it comes to the regulation of “forever chemicals,” it’s “just a big unanswered question whether this administration and this EPA is going to be serious about enforcing anything,” a former EPA official told ProPublica.
— ProPublica (@propublica.org) July 8, 2025 at 11:01 AM
But the movement to improve drinking water standards — and decrease threats to human health — persists.
“I think that what I see is maybe the biggest difference between this movement and some of the other historical examples like movements on climate change or tobacco,” said Frazin, “is the media attention and the level of awareness. And so that’s what we’re trying to do – we’re trying to bring that attention to this issue. This issue has not received the attention it deserves.”
And Udasin noted that science might one day break the “unbreakable” chemical bonds that make up PFAS and perhaps reduce their toxic impact.
“I have a lot of hope in the science and technology that are actually currently being developed,” she said. “There are these brilliant scientists all over the world right now who in their laboratories are actually breaking apart the PFAS. A few of them are starting to be at commercial scale, or at least pilot-level commercial scale. So that gives me some hope that at least there may be a solution to getting rid of these at some point. And it’s not in the too-distant future.”
The post ‘Poisoning the Well’ Authors Sharon Udasin and Rachel Frazin on PFAS Contamination and Why It ‘Has Not Received the Attention It Deserves’ appeared first on EcoWatch.
https://www.ecowatch.com/poisoning-the-well-book-ecowatch.html
Green Living
Facing Climate Anxiety With Visual Comedy: ‘World Without End’ Graphic Artist Christophe Blain
Jean-Marc Jancovici is a well-known lecturer in France, and on YouTube, on the topics of energy and climate change. He focuses on the deep history and interconnections of the Earth’s consumption apparatus – how things are made, what things are made of, how energy is created, distributed and burned, and how the energy needs of the future should be met.
Christophe Blain is a French graphic artist known for his humorous historical works, most notably Weapons of Mass Diplomacy. But a few years ago, he was struck by current events in his home country.
“In the summer of 2018, there were severe heat waves,” Blain said. “I realized they were linked to global warming. I said to myself, ‘This is it, we’re here.’ I was very anxious for a year.”
He began talking to his brother to see what could be done. His brother had been following Jancovici’s lectures for more than ten years, and recommended that Blain watch a few and possibly make a connection with Jancovici.
“My brother told me, ‘Make an album (book) with Jean-Marc.’ I immediately replied, ‘I know. But it’s going to be hard.’ He said, ‘Do you have a choice?’ Five minutes later, I wrote an e-mail to Jean-Marc.”
The result of this meeting of minds is World Without End, a full-length graphic book that melds Jancovici’s words with Blain’s vibrant and comical illustrations to tell the story of energy: where we’ve been, and where we might be headed. It’s a long-form book version of one of his lectures, rich in data, theory and commentary, propelled by Blain’s unique method of visual storytelling in which a reader never gets lost or overwhelmed. The book has been a sensation in France, selling more than a million copies, and a translated version has been released in the U.S.
Blain shared some answers with EcoWatch via e-mail.
How and why did the book become so popular in France?
On social networks, I noticed that the people who followed Jean-Marc all wanted to pass on his thoughts and make him known. As if it were a vital necessity. I felt the same way.
I said to myself: a book is an object that’s easier to transmit than a conference. You can take your time to fully understand what’s at stake. What happened was exactly what I’d hoped: the people who read it wanted to give it away and pass it on.
How collaborative was the illustration / text process?
We’d meet up with Jean-Marc, and he’d use his courses, his conferences and the research he was doing with his company, Carbone 4. I’d ask him lots of questions, we’d comment on current events, and I’d take lots of notes. Then I’d work alone to transform my notes into a storyboard. We’d meet up again and correct my storyboard. Then we’d start again.
What kind of challenges were there illustrating the topic of energy, energy history and climate?
Jean-Marc is an extraordinary teacher. He uses lots of poetic, amusing images to explain sometimes complex concepts. If you don’t understand one image, he uses another. He always gets it right in the end. And everything becomes luminous. He makes you smart.
I love using images to explain sometimes abstract concepts. I do it a lot in my work. I love drawing crazy, poetic images, a bit psychedelic, to talk about something complex and subtle. Jean-Marc and I understand each other very well. We had a lot of fun together.
You choose visual “comedy” to move some sections forward – it helps to move through some quite depressing facts – how did you manage to juxtapose some of the bleaker facts with these kind of cartoony “jokes”?
Because I’m a funny guy. And I like to laugh at my anxieties. And because the book had to be fun. Always fluid, always hyper-understandable. This album is about serious, complex things. But I’ve worked very hard to make it easy to read.
As you were illustrating the book, what things did you learn?
I learned a lot from Jean-Marc’s own attitude. He’s been fighting this battle for years. His patience, energy and determination fascinate me. I’d often get angry at what I thought was idiotic behavior, in the face of the challenges facing all humanity. Jean-Marc brought me back to reason and patience, not to waste my energy in anger but to train my mind to find the right arguments.
What did you learn about the importance of energy?
I’ve learned that our way of life, even if we don’t see it, even if we don’t realize it, requires a colossal use of energy, of the Earth’s resources.
The details about the toothpaste tube and the smart phone, and the massive apparatus needed to create these ubiquitous objects… these were eye-opening to me. How did you feel learning that?
I felt that we live in a more fragile world than we think. That many details of our daily lives, which seem obvious and unchanging, can disappear faster than we think.
Was it surprising to you to see that “organic” is just a label that really has little impact on the deep underlying problems with the agricultural industry?
This is true for many other aspects. We live on heavy industry. A few organic beans are a good thing. But you have to look at the whole production chain, which produces for the masses, for millions of people, using colossal resources.
How was this book “therapy” for you? (On page 133, Blain talks about his recurring dreams of a nuclear accident.)
Jean-Marc told me that once you start looking into these problems, researching and working on them, you can’t stop. It’s a constant therapy through action. Understanding is the first and most important step. Even if you don’t know how to act right away. We change in spite of ourselves. We look at our surroundings differently. And then, little by little, we take action, in our daily lives or on a wider scale.
For example, we gradually stop wanting the same things. You organize your life differently. You have to accept that this is a step-by-step process. Not a radical revolution that will solve all problems.
Compared to your other work, how does World Without End fit in?
My vision of the world is different and I can’t go back. And I’m continuing to work with Jean-Marc.
Any other final words?
I sincerely hope to find an American audience who will welcome us. Not just because it would bring us success, but obviously because the USA has an extremely powerful influence on the world. I’ve traveled there several times. It’s a country that fascinates me.
The post Facing Climate Anxiety With Visual Comedy: ‘World Without End’ Graphic Artist Christophe Blain appeared first on EcoWatch.
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DeBriefed 11 July 2025: Texas floods; Global warming ‘tripled’ Europe heat deaths; Ireland exits coal
DeBriefed 11 July 2025: Texas floods; Global warming ‘tripled’ Europe heat deaths; Ireland exits coal
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