- Title: Wake up and smell the coffee - from your Ukrainian sunglasses!
- Date: 30th August 2019
- Summary: KIEV REGION, UKRAINE (RECENT) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) OCHIS COFFEE CEO, MAKSYM HAVRYLENKO, SAYING: "We tried to press every organic substance which can be bought by weight in a supermarket. Mint, parsley… What else? We tried to press cardamom, even rosemary, turmeric. We experimented with different substances. And then some day, my wife came to me and said: "Max, coffee!" And I was like: "Bingo!" First, coffee is black which is a classic colour of sunglasses which suits everything. Secondly, there are lots of coffee grounds in the world. There are millions of tons of coffee grounds in the world. That's how it started."
- Embargoed: 13th September 2019 10:29
- Keywords: coffee grounds OCHIS COFEE green innovations sustainable fashion eco-friendly Maksym Havrylenko sunglasses eyewear Ukraine plastic waste
- Location: KIEV REGION AND KIEV, UKRAINE
- City: KIEV REGION AND KIEV, UKRAINE
- Country: Ukraine
- Topics: Environment
- Reuters ID: LVA003AUEU0K9
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: SHOT 10 CONTAINS PROFANITY
Ukraine's innovative OCHIS COFFEE eyewear brand is getting customers to literally smell the coffee - by making sunglasses out of coffee waste.
Driven by an ambition to create eco-friendly yet fashionable sunglasses, OCHIS COFFEE's CEO Maksym Havrylenko experimented with various herbs like mint, parsley, and cardamom, before he found the right natural material in coffee waste.
Green industries already use coffee waste to produce furniture, cups, printing ink, and biofuel, but Havrylenko is a pioneer in using it to make sunglasses, which smell of the freshly brewed beverage.
"First, coffee is black which is a classic colour of sunglasses which suits everything. Secondly, there are lots of coffee grounds in the world. There are millions of tonnes of coffee grounds in the world," Havrylenko told Reuters.
Havrylenko, who comes from a family of opticians and had 15 years of experience in the eyewear industry, had to dump some 300 samples before creating what he said were perfect OCHIS COFFEE sunglasses that are now available for $78-89.
The main advantage of sunglasses made of coffee grounds and flax glued by vegetable oil is that if disposed, they turn into a fertilizer after 10 years, he said.
OCHIS COFFEE's first fund raising effort on crowdfunding platform Kickstarter raised a bit more than $13,000, surpassing an initial $10,000 target and attracted customers from the United States, western Europe, Japan and Australia. Havrylenko said only 10% of clients were from Ukraine.
"Our super goal is to promote at least in Ukraine and in the entire world, first, the idea of production of clean products and, second, proper waste disposal," he said.
(Production: Serhiy Takhmazov, Margaryta Chornokondratenko) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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