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Waste not, want not – or turn your waste into cold, hard cash.

South Africans are becoming increasingly creative with their junk (not like that), turning it into things they can flog for a little cash on the side.

It’s called ‘upcycling’, and if you’re thinking you’re going to see the word ‘pallet’ somewhere you are correct.

Props to these South Africans who are embracing the side hustle, and there’s the added benefit of reducing waste and being kind to the environment.

Fin24 spoke with a few hustlers to find out more about their projects, and we’ll start with Shayl Voss.

The Cape Town data specialist says she has saved thousands by making her own furniture out of “cheap and sometimes free items”.

Voss made a headboard out of pallets, nails and wood glue. She also made couches and tables by stacking pallets on top of each other and gluing them together.

“Generally it would cost around R500 – R600 to buy a table like this. You can easily make one for under R100,” she says.

The couches can be used indoors or outdoors, with pillows that can also be upcycled. New outdoor couches easily retail for R4 000 or even R12 000.

Pallets cost around R30 each.

You probably know somebody who has a knack for turning their pallets into household items, and you can make a decent whack of cash flogging them on Gumtree.

There are a number of listings for pallet furniture, ranging from the low hundreds through to thousands of rands, so there’s some cash in the back pocket.

Next up is Peter Sutherland, who works in a bookstore by day, and is the embodiment of upcycling:

Sutherland has saved thousands through upcycling, including picking up a working Queen Anne fireplace near a storage unit, where it had been abandoned at the bins.

It only had one leg missing. He found a matching fireplace at a junk shop – and there was a spare leg. “My wife talked them into selling us just the leg,” he says.

A similar fireplace costs anything from R3 000 to R8 000 on Gumtree.

Sutherland built rainwater tanks out of old dirtbins, and planters from scrap wood and old flower pots a neighbour had thrown out. He turned an old drawer into a rustic seedling tray. He also refashioned discarded antique chairs.

Similar size rainwater tanks cost at least R250, while similar planting systems can cost anything from R600 to several thousand rand. Similar chairs, once fixed, retail for upwards of R1 000 each.

Peter is saving big bucks from upcycling, saying he can’t put an exact amount on how much his skills have saved him, and Voss is similarly stoked:

“Once you get into the hang of upcycling and reusing items you start to see everything in a whole new light,” says Voss. “You are a lot less inclined to throw anything away, no matter how broken, in the hopes of somehow transforming it into something new and useful again.”

Never hurts to save a little dosh here and there, but what about taking things to the next level?

Buying and selling on Gumtree has never been easier, especially if you’re making use of the app, so there’s no reason that the side hustle shouldn’t extend to a second income.

If you can rustle something up at home with a little know-how, that costs next to nothing, then it makes sense to use their platform to your advantage.

You can track all of the enquiries with a simple messaging system through the app, and your empire is up and running.

I should also say that there’s the added bonus of doing some good for the environment, but you knew that already.

[source:fin24]