Tag Archives: materials series

This is part of an ongoing series about the materials used in our products. Click here to read all the installments to date.
By Evan Hopkins
You may be saying to yourself, “A materials blog about wood? Everyone knows that wood is one of the most commonly recycled materials on the face of the planet! Evan must [...]

I'm always amazed at the number of clothes we go through in our house. Between my two growing boys, my rough-on-the-jeans Hubby and my own issues (how is it I never have ANYTHING to wear?!?) we are a virtual revolving door of fabric. Then, there is the guilt? Do I really think that someone wants [...]

So, your bicycle has had a good run, but it’s time to put it out to pasture. I know it’s tempting to throw that old bike in the trash, but not so fast! There are a number of ways to put that bike to good use!
If the bike is still useable, there are plenty of [...]

Thousands of miles of railroads have been abandoned in the United States, much of it in the last 40 years.
[Updated May 23, 2012]
A large two engine train was crossing America. After they had gone some distance one of the engines broke down. “No problem!” the engineer thought, and carried on at half-power. Further on down [...]

When you really stop and think about it, plastic is everywhere. In fact, if an item is man-made and you’re positive it isn’t made of metal, wood, paper, or glass, it’s very likely it’s made from plastic. A good chunk of these items are made from repurposed plastic, but plastic is still found in high [...]

This blog post was written by Hipcycle Intern Extraordinaire, Evan Hopkins. Would you like to intern for Hipcycle? Let us know!
Have you ever wondered what becomes of your old computer monitors, hard drives, and various electronic thingamajigs? Seeing that between 300 million and 400 million electronic items are dumped every year, it’s very likely that [...]

This blog post was written by Hipcycle Intern Extraordinaire, Evan Hopkins. Would you like to intern for Hipcycle? Let us know!
With the rise of CD’s and MP3 players, vinyl records have become something of a niche market. Nevertheless, the world still collectively churns out about 15 billion pounds of vinyl every year. While the vast [...]

(This blog post is third in a new series we will be writing here at Hipcycle on the materials that go into our products. Previous posts were on glass and metal.)
When I was a little girl, I was obsessed with paper. My best friend and I would play “office” for hours. We would shuffle paper [...]

(This blog post is the second in a new series we will be writing here at Hipcycle on the materials that go into our products. You can read the first entry on glass, here.)
That's me in the middle with my two best friends (who refused to be named). Think Bret would have liked me?
In 1987 [...]

(This blog post is the first in a new series we will be writing here at Hipcycle on the materials that go into our products. Hope you enjoy this and the ones that come.)
I recently read that it takes 1 million years for a glass jar to decompose. ONE MILLION YEARS! Not only that, but we get 27.8 pounds of air [...]