Circular coffee soap
High-quality, low-carbon soap produced with all components of leftover coffee grounds
#upcyclingcoffeegrounds #urbanwastestreams #lessonslearned
Perhaps you know that coffee grounds are all too often wasted. Perhaps you’re even bored of hearing it. You may have the impression that plenty of solutions already exist. In reality, it’s product application showcases that exist. Not solutions for waste streams. Can we change this by making soap? We’re on it.
Why do we want to turn coffee grounds into soap?
The idea followed naturally from our research on urban waste streams. Coffee grounds are a widely available waste stream, easy to collect separately. Much awareness exists about its potential. We looked into different product applications. Our conclusion: the most ecological solution is to steer clear from composites and instead focus on organic hygiene products.
We made our prototype and first production with Adamazeep & Beyers Koffie and with the support of Provincie Oost-Vlaanderen & Vlaanderen Circulair.
How do coffee grounds become soap?
And how do we prevent them from becoming a moldy scrub? Let’s look into the process.
First, we have to make a raw material decision. Are we working with by-products from big, industrial companies, or are we working with coffee grounds from offices? The first option is by far easier. Industrial by-products are mostly homogeneous and come in big quantities. The second option is, bluntly put, cumbersome. We’ll have to collect the coffee grounds from many buildings. The material will be wet, we’ll have to dry it before any further processing. We’ll never be certain of the consistency.
Why bother with collecting coffee grounds from offices, then? Two reasons. One is that we care. We want to prevent these grounds from becoming trash. The second reason is that, if we get our grounds from one industrial company, then we’re completely reliant on that one company. If we collect our grounds from many offices, one office dropping out of the network won’t hurt. But indeed, we must consider working with industrial sources too, or else we might not find a feasible cost/price balance.
So we have coffee grounds, and if necessary we dry them. Then, we can put a fraction of the material in soap as a scrubbing agent. No really, you read that right. Putting a lot of coffee grounds in soap would make it an abrasive sponge, one that would fall apart quickly.
Not to worry though. We haven’t collected all those coffee grounds just for greenwashing’s sake. There is another very valuable product we can make from coffee grounds: coffee oil. Coffee grounds can contain up to 10% of coffee oil, with both saturated and unsaturated fatty acids. The latter are highly interesting for cosmetic applications.
Incidentally, oil is the main ingredient in soap. We also need a soaping agent and essential oils, to make a soap that’s delightful to use. The example of the Dutch company Kusala shows us that If we use coffee oil and other upcycled ingredients, we can reach up to 66% of upcycled material in our soap bar. That’s a circular ka-ching right there.
Lastly, we must make soap from all these ingredients. That can be done via a hot or a cold saponification process. Using heat equals reducing quality. It also uses more carbon. For a low-carbon, high-quality soap, we choose cold saponification.
What did we learn from our first production?
We confirmed that it’s possible to make a high-quality, relatively price-competitive soap from coffee oil and the dry bits of coffee grounds.
We learned that pressing the coffee oil from coffee grounds is a major bottleneck in the region of Ghent.
The production process could be done together with social economy partners around Ghent, which would add a beautiful layer of creating entry-level employment to this already beautiful project.
However, a party is missing. Not like ‘feestje, fête’. A party willing to oversee the supply chain and sell the soap. We haven’t yet found any organization or individual who would like to take up this end of the game.
The first production sold at regular-to-high-end market prices, which is a good sign.
Are you interested in working with coffee grounds or coffee oil, either for hygiene or other product applications? Do mail kira@glimps.bio.
“Product applications for coffee grounds exists, but there is no large scale solution for this waste stream yet. We continue working towards a scalable circular value chain and business case.”
— Kira Van den Ende, strategist, GLIMPS.bio
From waste to revenue,
from fossil to bio-based.
We’ll help you from A to Z.