Hong Kong’s recycled aluminium jewellery brand Wind.n.Sand uses coffee pods as raw material

Hong Kong-based designer Charlotte Wong Ka-man has revolutionised the use of recycled aluminium by incorporating them in making Wind.n.Sand’s flagship sustainable jewellery. The eco-friendly accessories brand upcycles around 500 used aluminium coffee pods each month to produce key chains, hair-tie charms and earrings.

Charlotte Wong Ka-man is a 25-year-old student at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital School of General Nursing. It is quite astonishing how this young woman contributes to creating a better ecosystem.

Tough, according to her, the number of aluminium coffee pods the company can successfully recycle is “only a drop in the bucket”, and she hopes to change that for good in the upcoming days.

Modernisation has blessed us with smart technologies that allow us to have a perfectly brewed cup of coffee at home. But to state the actual fact, brewing a cup of coffee comes with an environmental cost as single-use aluminium coffee pods are used to store the beans.

These single-use coffee pods are then thrown out later to be dumped in landfills. Usually, coffee pods have aluminium or plastic coatings and can take almost 500 years to decompose.

Here Wong’s expertise will come into play as every now and then, over 600 pods need to be cleaned off the coffee grounds, followed by soaking them in detergent and water overnight and lastly, the aluminium covers from each one of them have to be peeled.

Charlotte Wong expects to inspire her surroundings: “But I hope to use these environmentally friendly accessories to create conversations about waste reduction and recycling in Hong Kong.”

Research led by a British producer of compostable coffee capsules, Halo, claims that 29,000 coffee pods get recycled out of the total 39,000 capsules produced per minute on a global scale. 

Big coffee brands like Nespresso have introduced special recycling schemes for their coffee pods, but unfortunately, most do not reach the recycling belt. Yet some brands have come up with compostable pods, but the same problem lies here. If those compostable capsules are not directed toward a composting factory and are rather sent to landfills, then again, the entire programme becomes useless.

Wong’s journey began in 2019 with an upcycling workshop introducing her to the discourse of aluminium coffee pods from the factory to end-of-life. After that, there was no turning back as the young entrepreneur founded her jewellery brand, Wind.n.Sand.  

“It created conversations among my friends about the disposable coffee capsule problem,” she became nostalgic.

“One to two customers quit using disposable coffee capsules and turned to reusable pods after buying my earrings,” she proudly commented after confirming that many of her customers are giving their used coffee pods instead of tossing them.

“If you only rinse it with water without soaking them overnight, the inside will be sticky,” she notified.

“Changing Hongkongers’ ideas and attitudes about recycling is key,” she added.

The firm was founded in 2020 and still publicises its products on Instagram or Facebook. The designer has already arranged various metal workshops in secondary schools where students were taught how to make jewellery from waste coffee pods. In future, Wong wishes to work alongside regional artisans and host workshops, a continuation of her plan for a sustainable tomorrow.

“Organising educational workshops is one of the best ways to promote upcycling because people can get a better understanding of the recycling process,” Wong’s passion for her work and sustainability is clear from her words.