Biohm’s coffee and orange waste lampshades pave the way to greener living

Did you know that according to the sustainability researcher Gunter Pauli, global coffee production creates an excess of 23 million tons of waste per year? And, orange production generates approximately five million tons of waste. Makes you wonder about your contribution to the planet's health? Thankfully, a few forerunners are here to lead the way. And as they say, one man's waste is another man's treasure. London-based biotech and biomanufacturing startup, Biohm, truly proves the adage right. Their latest range of lampshades, Obscure, are eco-friendly, 100 per cent natural, and made from coffee chaff and orange peel.

The brand's approach is to apply principles of ecological laws of nature, to create products that innovate across the entire manufacturing life cycle. In this case, by incorporating up to three kilograms of waste orange peel or coffee chaff and capturing up to 1.5 kg of carbon, each model acts as buffer, diverting waste away from landfill.

The lampshades are made from a material devised by the company, called Orb or organic refuse biocompound. This compound is made up of food and agricultural by-products and a plant-based binder, that can be formed into sheets or moulded into products. What's better is that these lampshades can be fed back into the production process of Orb to make new products. Or they can be cold-composted. "There has never been a more critical time to be doing the work we do at Biohm. Recent events have emphasised how our economies and systems are flawed and unsustainable and that we need to immediately implement radical and regenerative biotechnologies delivered through equitable and compassionate business models to make leaps in the fight against the climate crisis,” avers Ehab Sayed, Founder, Director of Innovation, Biohm.

Each of these beauties are produced on demand at BIOHM headquarters in South Bermondsey in London. To reduce the company's carbon footprint further, their supply chain is hyper-localised and the production process is closed-loop—no waste streams or by-products are created with the production. Also, the products are made with a ‘Just-In-Time’ or ‘On-Demand’ approach to make sure that every Obscure lampshade is produced with a clearly defined purpose.