UpcycleKaty
Combining Woodworking and Recycling HDPE Plastic to Help the
Environment and Create New things
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ABOUT ME
Welcome to UpcycleKaty. I am a full-time lawyer, part-time woodworker, and dedicated recycler. I enjoy combining my love of woodworking and recycling HDPE No. 2 plastic to create useful things to live a NEW ‘Upcycled Life.’
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WHY RECYCLE?
Plastic products have helped the world tremendously but the plastic waste problem is here to stay. With the overwhelming bulk of plastic stuck in our landfills, the only solution is creative recycling.
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HOW?
UpcycleKaty focuses on using ‘recaptured’ HDPE No. 2 plastic (i.e., shampoo bottles, milk jugs, buckets, etc.) . The HDPE is dried, washed, shredded and melted into a Joiners Mallet to live a new Upcycled Life with its forever woodworker. Every little bit helps.
“Recaptured” means the HDPE No. 2 plastic is manually gathered from streets, highways, fields or anywhere it can be found and not destined for a commercial recycling program. Buying an UpcycleKaty product means you are keeping 6-8 pieces of plastic out of a landfill.
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Step 1: Finding and Drying out the HDPE
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Parking lot find
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Pool Chlorine Buckets Lids Are Common
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Most Coin Operated Laundromats Don't Recycle
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Waiting to be Recaptured from Home Depot
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Buckets from the Freeway
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Bags of milk jugs
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Folgers Coffee Containers from Hwy 290
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Close call on this bucket lid
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Almost lost this Milk Jug
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Laundry haul!
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Step 2: Washing
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Step 3: Shredding
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Step 4: HDPE offcuts are saved and used too.
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Step 5: Heat and Press into Form via UpcycleKaty's homemade Bottle Jack Press
UPCYCLEKATY’S PRODUCTS
