Material Innovation | Coffee Cups, and...

In the context of increasingly serious environmental pollution, more and more people are working hard on the application of green and renewable materials. Not long ago, an article on the "Ten Commandments of Design" published on this site mentioned one point: good design is eco-friendly. So, today let's take a look at several examples of the use of eco-friendly materials in the past year. (Due to the length of the article, it is divided into two parts.)

1. A coffee cup made of coffee

German startup Kaffeeform designs and manufactures a variety of environmentally friendly coffee cups, and their latest creation is a takeaway cup made from waste coffee grounds.

Whether at home, in the office, or on the go, many people like to enjoy a cup of fragrant coffee in the morning or evening. But after brewing the coffee, what should we do with the coffee grounds? In addition, according to the International Coffee Organization, about 600 billion paper cups and plastic cups are used and discarded every year around the world, which is a striking environmental problem. (If you put them together, you might have to circle the earth n times)

So, product designer Julian Lechner wanted to do something with coffee grounds instead of just throwing them away. After three years of experimentation, he finally developed a new material that can be used to make products - Kaffeeform.

To develop this material, he collected coffee grounds from all local coffee shops in Berlin, dried them, and mixed them with biopolymers, starch, cellulose, wood, natural resins, waxes and oils. The resulting composite material has many advantages: it is biodegradable, lightweight, has the taste of coffee and the appearance of dark wood. And all Kaffeeform cups can be put into the dishwasher, are free of BPA (bisphenol A) and petroleum, durable, and have good insulation properties.

In 2015, Kaffeeform launched their first product, the espresso cup, followed by the cappuccino cup in 2016. In 2018, they designed and manufactured the Weducer cup, which can be used to replace paper cups and won the 2018 Red Dot Best Design Award.

Although these cups are designed to be used for a long time and biodegradable at the end of their life, Kaffeeform also provides a new additional service: recycling the cups after use and turning them into filaments for 3D printing, which can be used to extrude tiles or new cups. It can be said that it is a very good use of the material.

2. Edible packaging bags

Evoware is a company from Indonesia that specializes in edible bags (boxes) made from seaweed to add some fiber to your diet!

As we all know, white pollution in the ocean is getting worse and worse. The culprit is disposable plastics, especially the ubiquitous packaging materials in our lives. And after these plastics are eaten by fish, they eventually harm humans through the food chain. According to Evoware, Indonesia is the second largest contributor to marine plastic waste in the world, and a large amount of seaweed produced by local farmers is wasted for no reason.

So they developed a seaweed packaging material that can be eaten along with the contents. It is odorless and tasteless, but contains a lot of fiber, vitamins and minerals, and is halal certified. If you don't like to eat it, this material can also dissolve in warm water by itself and can also be used as a natural fertilizer for plants. It is completely biodegradable.

According to Evoware, the material has a shelf life of 2 years and does not contain any preservatives. It can even be printed, colored or labeled, and can be heat-sealed. Currently, the material is suitable for smaller packaging, such as instant noodle seasoning packets, cereals, instant powders, and even foods such as hamburgers. Of course, it is also suitable for non-food products, such as soap, haha.

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Image source: materia