German company Kaffeeform combines dried coffee grounds and biopolymer to create stylish-looking coffee cups and saucers that are not only durable and dishwasher-safe, but even smell a bit like coffee.
一家名為Kaffeeform的德國(guó)公司通過(guò)混合咖啡渣和生物高聚物，發(fā)明了一種新潮時(shí)尚的咖啡杯和咖啡碟。這種咖啡杯套裝不僅耐用，還可以用洗碗機(jī)清洗，聞起來(lái)甚至還帶有淡淡的咖啡香。

For every cup of coffee you brew, about two tablespoons of grounds wind up in the trash. That doesn’t seem like a lot, but just think about the millions of coffees consumed around the world every single day, and you’ll start to see the problem. Sure, some of those coffee grounds are recycled as fertilizer or beauty products like face masks, but most of it ends up at landfills. It was while contemplating this issue that German product designer Julian Lechner came up with a radical new and sustainable way of recycling coffee grounds – turning them into tableware.
當(dāng)你每泡一杯咖啡時(shí)，都會(huì)剩下兩大匙的咖啡渣。雖然看似剩下的量很少，但是當(dāng)每天全世界消費(fèi)數(shù)百萬(wàn)杯咖啡時(shí)，帶來(lái)的問(wèn)題就不容小覷了。的確，一些咖啡渣被回收利用作為肥料或是面膜類(lèi)的美容產(chǎn)品，但是大多數(shù)的咖啡渣都被丟進(jìn)了垃圾堆。德國(guó)一位產(chǎn)品設(shè)計(jì)師朱利恩·理奇耐在考慮這個(gè)問(wèn)題時(shí)，萌生了一個(gè)大膽新奇的、可持續(xù)回收咖啡渣的方法——將其變?yōu)榭Х缺摺?/p>

Lechner first came up with the idea of using coffee grounds to create eco-friendly crockery while attending university in the Italian city of Bolzano. “We were always drinking coffee at university,” he remembers. “Before classes, after classes, meeting friends, hanging out at espresso bars—all the time. And that’s how I started to wonder, What happens to all that coffee? It was all just getting thrown away.” He began consulting with his professors about ways of using coffee grounds to create a solid material, but it took him years to actually come up with a viable solution.
理奇耐在意大利波爾扎諾上大學(xué)時(shí)提出了一個(gè)設(shè)想——利用咖啡渣做環(huán)保陶器。他回憶說(shuō)：“我們?cè)诖髮W(xué)每天都喝咖啡，上課前，下課后，跟朋友聚會(huì)時(shí)，泡咖啡吧時(shí)……無(wú)時(shí)無(wú)刻不在喝咖啡。所以我就開(kāi)始思考，這些剩下的咖啡渣就只能被丟掉嗎？”他開(kāi)始和他的教授們討論如何把這些咖啡渣變成堅(jiān)固的材料，但是他們花了幾年才找到一個(gè)可行的辦法。

“We tried binding with a lot of different things,” Julian Lechner told VICE Munchies. “We even tried sugar. That was close, but basically it was a candy cup. It just kept dissolving after being used three times.” The whole point was to make the material durable, so it was back to the drawing board for him and his partners at a German research institute. Finally, after many failed experiments, long nights and liters of coffee, they came up with a mix of coffee grounds wood grains and a biopolymer of cellulose, lignin, and natural resins that seemed to behave the way Julian had envisioned it when he first embarked on his quest.
“我們?cè)囍貌煌恼持鴦?，甚至嘗試過(guò)用糖?！敝炖鳌だ砥婺驮赩ice Munchines（一檔美食節(jié)目）上稱(chēng)，“雖然材料很接近咖啡渣，但是做出來(lái)基本上是一只‘糖杯’，而且用了三次之后就融化了?！薄∽屧献兊酶鼒?jiān)固耐用是最核心的問(wèn)題，所以他和他的伙伴們又在德國(guó)一所研究所從頭開(kāi)始鉆研。他們做了無(wú)數(shù)個(gè)失敗的試驗(yàn)，熬了無(wú)數(shù)個(gè)漫漫長(zhǎng)夜，在試驗(yàn)中用掉了無(wú)數(shù)升咖啡渣后，最后終于創(chuàng)造了夢(mèng)寐以求的材料，這種材料由咖啡渣、木料、纖維素和木質(zhì)素等生物高聚物材料以及天然樹(shù)脂混合而成。

“The moment of knowing the cup would actually stand was super-exciting,” he recalls. “After such a long time, you have to really believe in an idea and that it can eventually work. It was overwhelming to drink that first coffee out of the cup. It proved to be totally worth the wait.” And the fact that his creation has proven commercially successful is just the icing on the cake. Kaffeeform coffee cups and saucers are now present in ten shops across Europe, and the company can hardly keep up with demand, regularly selling out of its stock online. And they’ve only been in business for a year.
理奇耐回憶說(shuō)，當(dāng)?shù)弥@種杯子不會(huì)融化，可以堅(jiān)挺地放置時(shí)，他欣喜若狂?！把芯苛诉@么長(zhǎng)時(shí)間，你就必須得相信這個(gè)想法是可行的，而且它最終可以實(shí)現(xiàn)。當(dāng)我喝到用這種杯子泡出來(lái)的第一杯咖啡時(shí)，心情百感交集。這么久的等待沒(méi)有白費(fèi)?！卞\上添花的是，他的發(fā)明還取得了商業(yè)成功，帶來(lái)了經(jīng)濟(jì)效益。現(xiàn)在歐洲有十家實(shí)體店出售Kaffeeform 咖啡杯具，但是仍然供不應(yīng)求，公司的網(wǎng)店隔一段時(shí)間就會(huì)賣(mài)斷貨，而他們才剛營(yíng)業(yè)一年。

“It basically all happened through word of mouth,” Lechner says about the success of his company. “It’s amazing to think of some of the places where orders have come from. A lot of individuals, but also a café in Saudi Arabia, Ritz Carlton Toronto, and the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo to sell in their museum [gift shop].”
理奇耐談到公司的成功時(shí)說(shuō)道：“咖啡杯具的銷(xiāo)售基本上是靠口碑的?！庇唵蝸?lái)自不同的地方，有的地方真的太出人意外了。有許多單獨(dú)的客戶(hù)購(gòu)買(mǎi)，也有來(lái)自沙特阿拉伯的咖啡店和多倫多麗嘉酒店的訂單，甚至連諾貝爾和平獎(jiǎng)的頒發(fā)地奧斯陸的博物館都在出售Kaffeeform咖啡杯具。

Kaffeeform will soon launch a larger line of coffee grounds cups for cappuccino, and is also working on a travel mug. But those are just short-term plans, as Lechner hopes to one day use recycled coffee grounds to create all sort of useful stuff. “What’s next? I’d love to see if we could one day create sheets,” he says. “Perhaps they could later be used for furniture in cafés and restaurants.”
Kaffeeform公司很快將大量生產(chǎn)一款專(zhuān)門(mén)泡卡布奇諾的咖啡杯，同時(shí)它也可以作為旅行杯。但是這些都是短期計(jì)劃，理奇耐希望未來(lái)能夠用可循環(huán)咖啡渣創(chuàng)造出各種實(shí)用物品?！跋乱粋€(gè)是什么呢？我想試試看用它能不能做床單?！彼f(shuō)道，”或許有一天咖啡渣能夠用來(lái)做咖啡館和餐館的家具呢?！?/p>

英文來(lái)源：odditycentral
翻譯：馮露（中國(guó)日?qǐng)?bào)網(wǎng)愛(ài)新聞iNews譯者）
審校&編輯：丹妮