Design for sustainable coffee (post)consumption

Coffee is the second largest traded commodity in the world after oil. The worldwide annual generation of Spent Coffee Grounds (SCG) is about 6 million tons, but up till now they are practically unutilized, being discharged to the environment or burned. Nowadays, many universities have worked to find new solutions for coffee grounds. There are many projects and scientific articles on the properties of SCG that describe how to extract lipids and many other precious elements. This project is carried out by Politecnico di Torino (DAD) in collaboration with the biggest Italian coffee roasted company, and has the goal to evaluate the feasibility of SCG valorisation at home and at restaurants and cafés. The first result is a communication about how to reuse SCG from moka at home (remove odors, keep pests out or whip up a coffee dye) and increase the consumer awareness. The second outcome deals with SCG from cafés. This includes both logistic and productive phases, that can give many different products such as paper, cosmetics or mushrooms. This project has also a strong educative aspect because it allows not only to be aware of the environmental problem, but also to be part of the solution.