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Zero waste is beautiful - 25th March 2022

Have you ever wondered what happens to the mountains of coffee grounds generated by our craving for a morning latte?

Coffee shops would usually have to pay for their disposal in landfill. However, in London, an enterprising brother and sister have started a business, UpCircle, making beauty products from this aromatic waste.

The company collects up to 100 kilogrammes of coffee waste in London, by bike, everyday and it's sent to their factory where it's combined with other natural products, like camomile infusions and ground olive stones.

Anna Brightman is the co-founder of UpCircle; she hopes that their wasteless approach to business will encourage other companies.

Anna Brightman: "I think the younger audience even more so, obvious, for obvious reasons, than the older generation are concerned about the future of our planet. And we cannot continue to take a linear approach. This really has to be the way forwards and if we can prove that it can be done in the beauty industry, then we're really hopeful as a brand that we can inspire more businesses and individuals to take this approach in their lives generally."

Barbara Scott-Atkinson is the product formulator for UpCircle. She explains why coffee's a more valuable ingredient for beauty products in a used state.

Barbara Scott-Atkinson: "Interestingly enough, it's a more interesting and versatile ingredient to use in, as a waste product. And in part, because it's been through that process, it's been heated and it's slightly damp, I mean you'll see from looking at the coffee. And actually that makes it more suitable to use in skincare."

As word got out about their creative use of waste coffee, the Brightman siblings got offers of other waste they could use in their products such as faded flowers from a florist and the by-product of water from a concentrated juice producer.

But UpCircle is not alone in their use of products which others throw away. Gemma Curtin is the curator of the Waste Age exhibition at London’s Design Museum.

Gemma Curtin: "So, there are designers in Poland looking at sugar beet waste, in Japan looking at rice husk waste, in in Mexico looking at waste from corn husks. So, people are looking at the waste that's around them. And designers are thinking, what can we do with that? How can we help the environment by using these materials?"

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