When it comes to recycling, many of us make an effort, packing bins for curbside or end-of-the-driveway recycling with items from gallon water and milk jugs, newspapers and outdated magazines to clean soup cans, yogurt containers and 2-litre soda bottles.

A few weeks ago an outdated combination boom box and a portable DVD player gathering dust at home went to Com-Cycle in Allentown as part of the once-a-month drop-off Friday program at the facility. Com-Cycle accepts a variety of electronics the last Friday of each month. Check out www.com-cycle.com for information on what is accepted.

As a family friend said during a holiday gathering, we all try to do our part to reduce, reuse and recycle.

For some, however, recycling involves whole buildings.

A recent issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education announced the 2013 Fentress Global Challenge inviting students to submit project entries on the theme "Upcycled Architecture." Fentress Architects, a firm with studios in such far-flung locals as Shanghai, China and Denver, Colo., defines upcycled architecture in its competition literature as "the art of redesigning an existing structure for purposes other than those for which it was originally intended ... that advances an existing building's sustainable, dynamic and programmatic uses." Prizes awarded for the first place entry includes $10,000 and a paid internship with Fentress Architects, among other things. (Past Fentress contests have sought designs for the workplace and airports of the future.)

However, those who live in and around Emmaus need not look to a tastemaker such as Fentress for exemplars of upcycling. Numerous examples are visible in a walk through town, a scan of recent memory and news reports of plans for the borough.

For instance, near the freight train overpass not far from what is now Greg's Auto and Tire Service, on South Tenth Street, itself a former self-serve car wash, Rodale reclaimed the site of Hursh Landscaping, formerly a beverage store, to create the Rodale General Store, a factory store of sorts for the famous publisher. Buildings around the Triangle shopping district have been the site of more upcycling than can be accommodated in the space of this column; however, it is worth noting the former John Gould's pharmacy site is set to transform into the new home of South Mountain Cycle and Cafe, and John Gould's gift shop, an important touchstone in this writer's personal history, now houses the Emmaus Run Inn, a running store once housed on the Triangle in the building where The Emmaus Free Press, a predecessor to The East Penn Press, made its home years ago. And the site of the office of Magisterial District Judge Donna R. Butler once was home to A & H Sporting Goods and a glass store.

Upcycling, according to Fentress guidelines, transforms an existing site already occupied by a built public structure in an effort to contain sprawl. Once more the site to be upcycled must be at least be a decade old.

Emmaus has two such high profile projects in its future: The former Main Street Gallery furniture store property on Main Street and the former Victorian Treasures Gift Shop, also on Main. The latter stately white mansion-like structure dates to 1824, according to The Press reports. The former furniture store building is slightly younger, dating back to the mid-1800s. Emmaus was incorporated in 1859.

The former gift shop, once a private home, is slated to become home to the history of Emmaus as the new site of the Emmaus Historical Society. The Main Street Gallery, now under renovation, will transform into office suites, among other, hopefully desirable, business locations.

Emmaus, it could be said, is doing its part to reduce, recycle, reuse and, in Fentress speak, upcycle.

April Peterson

editorial assistant

East Penn Press

Salisbury Press