Upcycle Hawaii

Upcycle Hawaii Upcycle Hawaii are your Trash-to-Treasure experts! Specializing in landfill diversion through our o

Plastic given a honu life. 🐢♻️These sea turtle bookmarks are cut by hand from fused marine debris rope — the same teal f...
05/18/2026

Plastic given a honu life. 🐢♻️

These sea turtle bookmarks are cut by hand from fused marine debris rope — the same teal fishing line and coral monofilament that washed up on Hawaii’s coastlines. Each one is completely one of a kind, because no two sheets of melted rope ever look the same.

We think it’s pretty fitting that plastic pulled from the ocean gets shaped into the very animal that suffers most from it. The honu deserve better from us. So does our ʻāina. 🌊💚

Drop a 🐢 below if you’ve heard us make that joke before. And if you haven’t — now you have. 🤙🏽

🛍️ Find us at the Hilo Farmer’s Market — Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays at Mamo St and Punahoa St, or order via link in bio.

05/18/2026

This is what marine debris rope looks like after it’s been melted. 🌊✨

Teal fishing line. Coral monofilament. Orange fiber. All pulled from Hawaii’s coastlines — cleaned by hand, laid out strand by strand, and pressed into this.

We had no idea it would look like this. We never do. Every sheet is a surprise, even to us. The fibers hold their shape through the melt, the colors stay true, and what comes out the other side looks less like recycled rope and more like art.

That’s the magic of this material. You can’t design it. You can only discover it. 💚

What does this look like to you? Drop it in the comments 👇🏽

Before any of this makes it to our studio, someone has to show up for the ʻāina. 🌊💪🏽This photo was taken on June 5th, 20...
05/16/2026

Before any of this makes it to our studio, someone has to show up for the ʻāina. 🌊💪🏽

This photo was taken on June 5th, 2018 during one of the heavier periods of marine debris inundation on the Ka’ū coastline of Hawaiʻi Island. What you’re looking at is tons of fishing rope, nets, buoys, and ocean plastic that washed ashore on our islands.

Do you see those people in the background? That’s — the Hawaiʻi Wildlife Fund — who has been organizing beach cleanups on Hawaiʻi Island in Ka’ū since 1996. Nearly 30 years of showing up for our ʻāina, season after season.

The teal rope you see piled in the foreground? That’s the same material sitting in our studio right now — being unraveled, cleaned by hand, and prepared to become something new.

We can’t undo what’s already in the ocean. But we can keep pulling it out, keep processing it, and keep turning it into something that lasts. 💚

If you’ve never heard of , go follow them. They do extraordinary work. 🤙🏽

05/16/2026

Before the heat press, there’s this. 🙌🏽

Aqua fishing rope and orange monofilament — both marine debris, both pulled from Hawaii’s coastlines — blended together by hand into a new color. The fibers twist and mix, and whatever pattern emerges in the blend is exactly what you’ll see in the finished sheet.

We don’t add anything. We don’t take anything away. We just let the material tell us what it wants to be.

This is the step nobody sees. 💚

Save this if you love seeing how things are made 👆🏽

05/15/2026

Here’s what most people never see. 🙌🏽

Before marine debris rope becomes material, it has to be unraveled, cleaned, sorted, and laid out strand by strand. Each piece gets untwisted by hand — separating the fibers, shaking out the organic material, and preparing it for the heat process.

It’s labor-intensive. It takes time. And it’s completely worth it.

Because on the other side of all this prep is a material that looks nothing like what washed ashore — and everything like something you’d want to carry. 💚

Save this if you love seeing how things are made 👆🏽

05/13/2026

No color we work with comes from a factory.
Some come straight from the sea. 🌊

Teal fishing rope. Corals and orange monofilament. Both marine debris. Both collected from Hawaii’s coastlines. We sort by color, texture, and thickness before anything gets processed — because the colors we choose now determine what the finished material will look like.

This batch? Ocean teal and sunset coral. We can’t wait to show you what it becomes. 👀

Follow along — the full process drops this week. 💚

05/13/2026

This is what the ocean does to plastic over time. 🌊

When marine rope gets tumbled on and off the shore for months or years, rocks, sand, seeds, and organic material work their way all the way to the core of the fibers. It’s packed in so tight you can’t shake it out.

Every piece of marine debris we process, we clean by hand — unraveling, separating, shaking out every bit of the ocean that hitched a ride.

It’s slow. It’s detailed. And it’s necessary before we can turn any of it into material.

This is what real landfill diversion looks like — not just collecting debris, but doing the unglamorous work that follows. 💚

Save this if it made you look twice at what washes up on our shores 👆🏽

This is where it starts. 🌊Teal fishing rope and coral monofilament line — two colors of marine debris pulled from our co...
05/11/2026

This is where it starts. 🌊

Teal fishing rope and coral monofilament line — two colors of marine debris pulled from our coastlines and sorted by hand in our Hilo studio. Before we can make anything, we have to unpack everything that the ocean packed in.

These aren’t just ropes. They’re years of exposure — sun, saltwater, sand, surf — all worked into every strand. And hidden inside them? More than you’d expect. 👀

This is the marine debris series. Follow along this week to see every step of what it takes to turn what washes ashore into something you can hold in your hands. 💚

05/11/2026

Sunday in the studio. 🌿

6.47 pounds of fused plastic sheets — weighed, stacked, and ready to become something NEW. Every sheet in that pile started as a bag, a wrapper, a piece of packaging that most people never think twice about throwing away.
We think twice. Every single time. 💚
That’s another 6.47 pounds that won’t end up in a Hawaii landfill or washing into our ocean. And next week we start all over again!

Finishing the week off strong. 🤙🏽

05/09/2026

A little over 2 hours to build. 6 hours of market. Then break it all down and do it again. 🤙🏽😅

This is what a market day at the Hilo Farmer’s Market actually looks like for us — the early morning setup, the organized chaos of bins and shelves and display pieces. ☀️☕️

Conversations with customers, whims of the weather… you just never know what a day at the market brings.

We’ve been showing up here most Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays for years. It’s labor-intensive, it’s a whole operation, and we wouldn’t trade it for anything. This community keeps us going. 🌺

If you’ve ever stopped by our booth — mahalo. You’re part of this story.

Come find us at the corner of Mamo St and Punahoa St. We’d love to see you. 💚

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Hilo, HI
96720-96721

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