(27 Nov 2019) LEAD IN: A company in the Ukraine is creating biodegradable sunglasses made from coffee waste.
It's hoped customers will be encouraged to buy to eco-friendly, yet fashionable alternatives to plastic sunglasses.
STORY-LINE:
Coffee, vegetable oil and flax - this machine is cutting through an unusual mixture of raw materials.
It is making a batch of what are said to be the first sunglasses made of coffee waste.
They were invented in 2018 by Max Gavrylenko, a young man in charge of his family's glasses repair business in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
"After the processing by digital machine our coffee waste has got a shape of true spectacle frame. We polish them and add all necessary parts, set temples, insert lenses and get such ready-to-wear sunglasses," Gavrylenko says.
Determined to make glasses which are completely biodegradable, Gavrylenko founded the innovative Ochis eyewear brand.
He says he tried a variety of different materials - from mint and parsley to buckwheat and rice - before trying coffee.
The production process for the coffee sunglasses took a few months for him to finesse, with many of the tools used made from scratch.
The sunglasses are made from coffee grounds and flax glued together with a biopolymer based on vegetable oil.
The materials are pressed into plates and then the frames are cut out, before they are sanded and shaped by hand.
The final stage involves attaching ecological cellulose triacetate lenses.
Gavrilenko claims "More than 2.5 billion coffee cups are being drunk during the day in the world. Consequently, a huge amount of coffee residue remains untreated and it simply goes to waste. Actually, it's a huge amount of commodity available for production of any items. Sunglasses are the first good, because I have been dealing with sunglasses for my whole life. This is my main competency and I know everything about them. But this is just a beginning. We are going to launch the production of other goods such as plates, toothbrushes, phone covers and other basic necessities"
Gavrylenko crowdfunded for the initial stages of the project, and is now doing a second round of fundraising on a crowdfunding website.
"It's not about production of goods only, but about changing people's conscience in favour of using natural material, natural components and conscious consumption," he says.
The sunglasses cost 89 or 139 US dollars, depending on the model.
The company's client base is customers from US and Europe, but Gavrylenko is planning a special collection for Ukrainians.
Today Ochis produces 5-7 pairs of sunglasses per day, aiming to eventually reach 50 pairs a day.
They are being sold in local cafes, as well as online.
"They are cool. I like the design. Actually, I don't like coffee as a drink but do like sunglasses made of coffee," says Dmytro Polyakov, who has bought his own pair of sunglasses.
Kateryna Gusarova, Manager of local coffeeshop Fair Fitch Coffee Centre, says:
"It's one more opportunity for us to save the ecology all over the world by using non-plastic frames but completely biodegradable frames made of (coffee) residue."
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