This new terms "Upcycling" is frequently heard lately.
It is a new but becoming popular subject in environmentalists and designers community all around the world. What it means is basically reuse garbage as material to produce new products without going though an expensive recycling industrial process. Due to the low-tech characteristic of this practice, many Upcyclers are in fact DIYers. Using low-tech manufacturing measures, most likely handicraft, these designer-makers revitalise what is commonly deemed as "waste" to a up-value items.
I guess a lots of people in this eco-diy.com community will agree and be interested to know more about this topic. Here's a website that advocate the idea. This is an English site. I hope someone who is capable to translate some of the interestnig articles there and post it to eco-diy.com forum for other Chinese speakers to enjoy.
http://www.trunity.net/upcycling/