▲ Creative Upcycle Cooperative / President Heojeong Choi

(PowerKorea) Upcycle stands for upgrade and recycle. Upcycling, also known as creative reuse, is the process of transforming by-products, waste materials, useless, or unwanted products into new materials or products perceived to be of greater quality, such as artistic value or environmental value. 

The Creative Upcycle Cooperative opened door in 2017 and obtained a preliminary social enterprise certificate from Chungju City. It collects and supplies waste resources, designs products, trains members, supports business and marketing, research and develop new products. At the workshops, learners can learn environmental puzzle, up art painting, eraser stamp, stencil can, coffee cup, mini pot, props, bicycle lights and many more. It is notable that the Creative Upcycle Cooperative introduced a mask pack and a UV sunblock cream made by using waste apple. 

“Monsoon and storms last year devastated many apple farmers last year. I learned that huge amount of apples must be thrown away and I wanted to make them rather useful. I worked with an environment professor at Korea National University of Transportation and a paper professor at College of Agriculture, Life & Environment Sciences of Chungbuk National University to introduce ‘apple gold mask pack’. Because the mask is made of substances from apple, it is rich in vitamin C, grape sugar, fruit sugar and tartaric acid and it can help fatigue recovery and skin elasticity” says Heojeong Choi, President of the Creative Upcycle Cooperative.

The cooperative signed business agreements in January 2019 with the Chungju Facilities Management Corporation and the Korea National University of Transportation University-Industry Cooperation to promote environmentally-friendly education for children. 

Choi is engaging in various activities and programs such as nursery village school, drone mentor-mentee and public-private-industry-academic governance. She organized an event celebrating the first Resource Recycling Day of North Chungcheong Province in 2019 and displayed products made by using waste resources in the Chungju City Hall plaza. 

Everybody can visit and join activities of the Creative Upcycle Cooperative that encompasses various areas from education and experience to exhibition, creation, production making and selling. 

The cooperative has built a network for human resource, local government, educational institutions and local communities that can make cooperation and collaboration easy. 

“I will keep introducing creative activities and programs so that we can together create an environmentally better world especially in this time of climate change cause by us” says Choi.

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