Finnish company Rens recycles coffee waste into sneakers and aims to become carbon-neutral

What is your preferred method of brewing coffee? Black? Combined with milk? Alternatively, on your feet? A Finnish footwear company has raised more than $US800,000 ($1.1 million) for the purpose of producing shoes made partially from used coffee grounds.

A few Rens sneakers contain approximately 300 grammes of coffee waste.
The footwear is manufactured in Vietnam, one of the world’s largest producers of coffee.
Rens claims that it will offset all emissions associated with packaging and shipping.
Rens, a footwear company based in Helsinki, claims to have developed a waterproof sneaker made entirely of coffee waste and recycled plastic bottles.

It is an attempt to mitigate the environmental impact of used coffee grounds, which, when decomposing in landfills, release methane, a potent glasshouse gas that significantly contributes to global warming.

Each year, approximately 6 million tonnes of used coffee grounds are disposed of in landfills.

“When we started, we discovered that only 5% of the world’s coffee waste was recycled,” says Rens co-founder and CEO Jesse Tran.

“And while coffee waste is technically a biowaste, it does generate a significant amount of methane, a glasshouse gas 32 times more potent than CO2. Thus, what we are doing here is simply extending the life cycle.”

Read more • abc.net.au