It’s not often we get to see a chandelier made with cola cans, or lamps made out of old car parts. But Swechha, a Delhi-based NGO, is trying to reverse the degradation of wastes by finding ways to “upcycle” them. And these products are examples of those processes.

“Unlike recycling, where you downgrade the product to reuse it as something new, upcycling upgrades the value of the product,” Vimlendu Jha, executive director of Swechha, told Scroll.in. “In a sense it is creative reuse of waste.” To set the tone, Swechha has ensured that its own office is an upcycled one, repurposing just about any everyday item into useful objects.

The NGO’s Delhi office is replete with old paint cans upcycled for use as light fitting, milk cartons turned into book shelves, and bicycle tyres used as room partitions (video above). “It’s not a new concept, our grandmothers have been upcycling for generations. The intent is to think before trashing something, to think before putting something in the bin,” said Jha.