Old wooden pallets, cartons, textiles – the things that end up in waste containers at many companies every day are valuable materials for the Upcycling-Zentrum in Neunkirchen. The project staff, which includes long-term unemployed people and refugees, take the pallets and build good-as-new benches, tables or stools from them, based on designs by design students. The project promotes the implementation of a resource-conserving closed-loop economy while also bringing together people from different national and social backgrounds who would otherwise have few points of contact in everyday life. This empowers the participants – and strengthens social cohesion.