This Startup Turns Used Coffee Into Beverage Cups To Reduce Plastic Pollution
Coffee shops are major polluters, thanks to their business model. When people get their coffee to go, that¡¯s plastic in the cup, the lid, the straw if it¡¯s an iced drink, and even all the coffee grounds waste. One startup wants to help fix this.
Coffee shops are major polluters, thanks to their business model. Just the US uses at least 120 billion disposable coffee cups each year, and who knows how many more elsewhere. It's a major source of plastic pollution.
When people get their coffee to go, that's plastic in the cup, the lid, the straw if it's an iced drink, and even all the coffee grounds waste. One startup wants to help fix this with a recycling solution.
Images courtesy: Kaffeeform
Kaffeeform is a Berlin-based start-up that's creating coffee cups from recycled coffee grounds. They've been doing this for the past three years, picking up used coffee grounds from caf¨¦s across Berlin with the help of courier services. They then repurpose these into eco-friendly mugs that can be used to package customers' drinks.
Founder Julian Lechner says he first hit upon the idea while studying product design in 2009. "We had a lot of coffee all the time," he told Business Insider. "At some point, I was wondering what happens with all these spent coffee grounds."
Germany is also one of the biggest coffee-consumers in all of Europe. The average person is responsible for the use of about 6.3 kg of coffee beans each year. And that's not even considering all the paper, plastic, and foam used to package that coffee.
Kaffeeform then is trying to kill two birds with one stone. By turning coffee grounds into cups, they can deal with the waste produced and also cut down on the industry's plastic output. Crow Cycle Courier Collective, the team they work with to source the coffee grounds, usually gather about 50 kg of grounds each day.
The coffee waste is sorted and then cleaned at Kaffeeform's workshop. After that, they're transported to a different facility where they're dried and blended with plant fibers, beechwood grains, and natural resins.
The mix is then heated and shaped under pressure, with about 6 cups of grounds making on espresso cup and saucer. They're dishwasher-friendly, long-lasting, and can be reused over and over. They're also 100 percent biodegradable.
So far, Kaffeeform's cups are in 20 caf¨¦s around Berlin, and 150 vendors across Europe. But that's just the current day model. Eventually, they also hope to gather more coffee grounds and start turning into lifestyle products and furniture.