Lancaster student launches online community for keen upcyclers

While at college, Cole Glover would buy and sell furniture from his car, and noticed a demand for upcycled items.

This - alongside a desire to be more sustainable - led Cole to see a gap in the market for a website, and decided to set one up.

Cole, who is studying business and finance, has now launched his website, which is called Upcite and brings fellow upcyclers together to buy and sell upcycled items.

The site is also a platform where businesses can get rid of damaged furniture that can easily be recycled.

Cole, who is originally from Northumberland, is crrently in talks with charities and schools so that design, arts and crafts students can use items from the website which need upcycling on their courses.

He said: “Moving away from home has been crazy and with the difficulty of not meeting anyone due to online lessons it has been quite hard, so trying to do that, university, business and trying to socialise has been very hard.”

Cole said he loves the 'creative process' of setting up a website.

“I would say its the creativeness and how people express themselves through their work, there is a uniqueness about it," he added.

Since the launch Cole has been trying to spread the word about his new website and has been sharing it on social media.

He said: “The website is going quite well; as you can imagine doing everything yourself, the development process has taken a while so I am just using this period to test the waters and see what works and what doesn’t.

“We have got a lot of positive feedback so far so I do like to say how it is doing well.”

Cole's website can be found here.