A disconnection between her work as a furniture designer-maker and her personal values nudged Sarah Christensen to drift toward sustainable practice. By juggling the art of designing with her core values, Wales-based Christensen decided to create homeware products from coffee waste.
Despite homeware being a broad product area, initially she focused on plant pots to advocate its benefits. Thereon, she ventured into creating soap dishes and candle holders which were intended to encourage users to switch off the lights and enjoy a soak in the tub.
To introduce sustainability in her work, Christensen decided to use coffee ground from a nearby cafe By The River in Glasbury considering it as a clean and acceptable material. With a consistency of 40 per cent of used coffee ground and 60 per cent Jesmonite, an eco and VOC-free alternative to other traditional resin-based products, Christensen attempted to cast the coffee immediately into sheets. The sheets once set can be stored until needed and are broken down into chips and used as a type of terrazzo.
By following circular economy, the products can be broken down upon reaching their end life and can be re-made into something new. Christensen confirms that they can also be repurposed in the same way a terracotta pot can be used as crocs in plant pots, or they could be recycled as building rubble.
Image credits: Sarah Christensen