Coffee for beauty - 25th March 2022

Do you know what happens to the coffee grounds from your favourite cafe?

Cafes usually throw these grounds away. But one company in London is fixing this problem. It's called UpCircle. It's taking the used coffee grounds and making beauty products.

UpCircle collects around 100 kilogrammes of coffee grounds daily. It sends the grounds to a factory where they're mixed with other natural waste products. This is made into eco-friendly beauty products.

Manager, Anna Brightman, wants other businesses to start recycling waste products too.

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 a skincare expert. She creates UpCircle's products. She thinks coffee grounds are suitable for beauty products.

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."

Other businesses are getting involved. They’re offering UpCircle more leftover products. These include unsold flowers and water from juice producers.

But UpCircle isn't the only business recycling natural waste products. Around the world, designers are also including these products in their work.

Gemma Curtin managed a design exhibition at The Design Museum in London.

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?"