Recycling = avoiding waste, re using materials which would use more energy to create from new, avoiding disposal of otherwise environmentally harmful materials if they can be re used.
Upcycling = taking something that would be thrown away, perhaps doing some work on it and using it for another purpose, and making a profit. Marketing or fashion speak? Just another shade of grey in the spectrum of recycling?
Using old inner tubes cut into bands to hold your lights etc on or hold your tools together, probably recycling. Using old kitchen cabinets in the garage or shed, probably recycling unless you paint them up and flog them to someone else, even for a nominal sum, to use in their own kitchen, when it might be considered upcycling. Of course if you were to paint them up to use in your own kitchen then it would be simply renovation, or what we used to call thriftiness.
All IMHO, of course.