Sweet coffee cups provide a solution to throwaway culture. Coffee grounds, meanwhile, are an effective substitute in the construction industry.
And as a startup from Ukraine has recently proved, they have other uses too. In this case, as spectacle frames.
The team collects the grounds from cafes in Kyiv. After they’ve been dried, the grounds are mixed with natural oils and a biopolymer from vegetable oil.
The glasses are then manufactured in 39 individually developed production stages, many of which involve manual work. No CO2 emissions.
The vegan frames are even said to give off a discreet coffee odour for the first few weeks.
In Japan, meanwhile, there’s still more innovative work for glasses underway.
