For many years, I have always wanted to create a product which uses a waste material in some way in order to reduce reliance on plastics and other materials which harm our environment.

I enjoy making espresso at home from whole beans, having at least one coffee most days. This means for each coffee I make, I end up with a ‘puck’ of ground coffee which is normally discarded. Once I had decided to take on this project, I spent a month or two drying out each puck of coffee and storing it for later use.

I came up with the idea of incorporating coffee grounds into an eco resin to create an object, in this case, a tealight holder. I created a design, 3D Printed the positive form, silicone cast the negative and then I had a mould to experiment with. From here I started with the eco resin on it’s own to get used to the process and then tried many different ratios of coffee to resin. Many failed due to the high concentration of coffee preventing the two-part resin from curing properly, but eventually I found a ratio where the cure time wasn’t excessive and the coffee still showed in the final casting.