Inherent in the understanding of upcycling is the concept of Zero Waste.  Zero Waste is a philosophy and a design principle for the 21st Century. It includes 'recycling' but goes beyond recycling by taking a 'whole system' approach to the vast flow of resources and waste through human society.Zero Waste maximizes recycling, minimizes waste, reduces consumption and ensures that products are made to be reused, repaired or recycled back into nature or the marketplace.

Zero Waste:

• redesigns the current, one-way industrial system into a circular system modeled on Nature's successful strategies
• challenges badly designed business systems that "use too many resources to make too few people more productive"
• addresses, through job creation and civic participation, increasing wastage of human resources and erosion of democracy
• helps communities achieve a local economy that operates efficiently, sustains good jobs, and provides a measure of self-sufficiency.
• aims to eliminate rather than manage waste

Zero Waste makes recycling a powerful entry point into a critique of excessive consumption, waste, corporate irresponsibility, and the fundamental causes of environmental destruction. We have all gotten very comfortable with the idea that waste is necessary, or at least a necessary evil.  There is so much of it in our daily lives that conceiving of a waste-less world seems ludicrous at times.  But it is possible, and in many ways we are moving towards it.  In many parts of the world waste cannot be created because there is nowhere for it to go.  As we all become more conscious of and committed to this cause, the vision of a clean earth and a clean future become much more clear.