Every day, Drew Wright cycles to 25 tearooms and coffee shops across London to collect 100kg of coffee grounds for Upcircle that would otherwise end up in landfill.

The company created six years ago by Anna Brightman and her brother Will manufactures beauty products from coffee waste, chamomile infusions, olive stone powder, among others.

The duo then started executive careers in multinationals but, Anna explains to AFP, "I wanted to do something that was closer to my aspirations".

“My brother came up with the idea for Upcircle by simply asking the coffee shop he went to every day out of curiosity what they did with all that coffee grounds.

Since then, Anna and Will have made a name for themselves as "the crazy brother and sister who criss-cross London collecting coffee grounds".

"People have started contacting us about all kinds of residue" and "we now work with 15 ingredients" including water resulting from the manufacture of fruit juice concentrates, withered bouquets thrown away by florists or remnants of spice decoctions.

They pay to collect certain ingredients, but not the coffee for example, even if the logistics to collect it are complex and in themselves expensive.

500,000 tonnes of coffee grounds are thrown into UK landfills each year and Upcircle boasts that it has recycled 400 tonnes of it to date.

Anna Brightman, creator with her brother of the company Upcircle which makes cosmetics from coffee grounds and other waste, on February 10, 2022 in London Tolga Akmen AFP

Anna Brightman admits that when she and her brother asked cosmetics industry veterans for advice, the response was that beauty and trash can't rhyme.

"Neither disgusting nor dirty"

But the entrepreneur believes that the message must be conveyed that "these ingredients are neither disgusting nor dirty".

According to her, "the young public in particular is more open to the idea of ​​the circular economy" which reuses products and materials, "because for obvious reasons they are more concerned with the future of the planet".

An Upcircle employee collects coffee grounds from a coffee shop to make cosmetics on February 10, 2022 in London Tolga Akmen AFP

Barbara Scott-Atkinson, chemist in charge of formulating Upcircle's products, says coffee grounds are better for cosmetics than raw ground coffee, "because it's been heated, it's moist, and it's 'it has even more antioxidants'.

All recovered materials are sent to the company's factory in Bridport, a town three hours south-west of London.

The site smells of citrus essential oils, one of the components of the scrub produced today.

The preparation is extremely simple: coffee grounds mixed with sugar and essential oils, then adding whipped shea butter and a natural preservative.

The concoction is then deposited in glass boxes and distributed throughout the United Kingdom, at the rate of 3,000 units per week.

Demand is growing rapidly - Upcircle however refuses to give figures on its sales or growth - especially in the United States.

Coffee grounds recovered from coffee shops by the company Upcircle to make cosmetics, February 10, 2022 in London Tolga Akmen AFP

So much so that Upcircle now has to deal with many competitors who reuse food waste, like Wildefruit or the Australian Frank Body, and even the British giant Body Shop.

Consequence: coffee waste, in particular, begins to become sought after.

Share the week

“Now we have cafes asking if we can share the week with another business that also wants to recover grounds,” notes Ms. Brightman.

Faced with the depletion of the planet's resources, entrepreneurs and creators around the world are imagining new ways to create value with all kinds of waste.

The "Waste Age" exhibition at the London Design Museum (until February 20) highlights in particular the reuse of agave fibers to design tables, benches or hammocks before designers by designer Fernando Laposse, trained at the prestigious Central St Martins art school.

Chairs made from old fridges at the 'Waste Age' exhibition at London's design museum on February 2, 2022 Tolga Akmen AFP

He also uses the multicolored corn cobs from his native Mexico to design tables or varnishes, among other creations that fuel a circular economy by creating local jobs.

In the United Kingdom, "we recycle 15% of our waste, the rest is incinerated or thrown into landfills", recalls Gemma Curtin, curator of the exhibition.

The quantities of plastics and chemicals produced by humanity are so enormous that scientists are now calling for urgent production ceilings to be set, and the UN will be looking from February 28 to March 2 in Nairobi on a possible future treaty or agreement on plastic.

The exhibition also features chairs made from old refrigerators, sneakers decorated with fishing nets recovered at sea, or the work of fashion designers like Stella McCartney or Phoebe English, who use recycled plastic bottles, for example. .

Clothes by fashion designer Stella McCartney made from recycled waste during the "Waste Age" exhibition at the Design Museum in London, February 2, 2022 Tolga Akmen AFP

For Gemma Curtin, this makes it possible in particular to rethink “our conception of what luxury is”.

The last room of Waste Age gives pride of place to furniture or building blocks in cardboard cups of hot drinks to take away.

In the UK alone, 2.5 billion of these plastic-coated and therefore non-recyclable cups end up in the trash every year.

© 2022 AFP