Ground2Ground: From Coffee to Upcycled Straws
Globally, we consume 2.25 billion cups of coffee a day, which equals a shocking 23 million tons of wasted coffee grounds each year. In response, first-year student Nihaarika Arora created Ground2Ground—a set of upcycled straws fabricated from used coffee grounds blended with natural binding agents. The straws are designed to be reused and compostable, “returning to the ground at the end of their lifecycle.”
Globally, we consume 2.25 billion cups of coffee a day, which equals a shocking 23 million tons of wasted coffee grounds each year.
It all started with Nihaarika's reimagination of a single-use coffee cup and straw. First, she explored blending discarded coffee grounds with natural binding agents such as chitin, but addst that she is “still in the exploratory phase of the project, searching for the most durable material combination. My vision is to extrude a bio-composite using coffee grounds as an additive to existing natural polymers for mass production."
Product Life Cycle
The above diagram depicts the life cycle analysis to incorporate the cradle-to-cradle (Ground to Ground) approach. Her research also highlights how farmers in the coffee sector are exploited. "My next step was to imagine a service that collects wasted coffee grounds and helps farmers," she shares.
The storyboard below illustrate three user journeys to better understand the system for collecting and distributing the Ground2Ground straws. In this scenario, Nihaarika imagines that the service donates 15% of profits to coffee farmers in Harrar, Ethiopia.
Product + Packaging
Nihaarika envisions the straws being available in 3 different colors, packaged in a triangular cardboard box that is easy to stack and takes up less space during distribution. The user can individually pick out straws with the perforation on the front ,or simply open the entire package from the top.
