Wind.n.Sand is an upcycling jewellery and ornament brand from Hong Kong. The Founder and Designer of Wind.n.Sand, Wong Ka Man (Charlotte), started making coffee capsule jewellery three years ago. She started promoting her brand by joining different weekend markets and collaborating with different companies for souvenir making. The workshop is also one of the important medium for Wind.n.Sand to educate the general public.
In 2023, she was awarded The Upcycling Innovator Award and the Green Chic Award in the Reborn! Upcycling Design Award 2023. Her encouraging story was also being shared on SCMP, Yahoo! and RTHK. Recently, she had her first exhibition with the use of the material - coffee capsules. It was her first time creating larger-scale art pieces than jewellery, and more will be in the future.
AL Circle: Why were end-of-life aluminium coffee pods chosen for Wind.n.Sand jewellery?
Charlotte: There are several reasons.
There are many jewellery made with different materials, but I won’t use them long. Many girls and ladies bought a lot of accessories, but not all of them will be used so often. Thus, I would like to create something that I am eager to wear more and will never forget the existence of it. “Accessories with meanings” is the idea I popped up at that time. Therefore, I started using coffee capsules to make earrings which I can wear to work every day.
Coffee Capsules cannot be recycled by aluminium recycling bin as each coffee capsule consists of coffee grounds, plastic, filter paper, etc. All these materials need to be separated in order to be recycled, and there is no one willing to spend time on this. However, I would like to show everyone waste might not be waste if you can discover its beauty and alternative uses.
Since there are a limited number of artists in Hong Kong doing Coffee pod jewellery, I would like to make upcycled jewellery more common so that it can be appreciated by everyone. The echo could be greater when a limited group of people create original coffee capsule accessory designs.
Aluminium is light and will not rust, thus less burden as earrings or necklaces.
Coffee capsules contain many colours and patterns which cannot be drawn by hand easily.
AL Circle: How difficult is it to source used aluminium coffee pods from landfills? What process is followed by Wind.n.Sand?
Charlotte: Actually, I source them from coffee capsule consumers before they throw them into landfills. It’s difficult to ask people to collect hundreds of capsules before they give it to me. Moreover, most people will not clean them before donation, and most of the time, the pods get mouldy when I collect them.
It’s more feasible for offices with coffee capsule machines to collect a large amount before donation, but not many people in the office can maintain the habit or even realize they are creating a burden on the environment.
Usually, I will ask people to collect around 50-100 coffee capsules before I collect them in order to reduce shipping fees or times of meeting up.
But I understand the incentives are not big enough to ask more people to make coffee pod donations to a small business. I am planning to make a scheme for all coffee pod donors, wherein they can enjoy discounts when they donate coffee pods in order to encourage their consistency in saving the coffee pods.
AL Circle: How do you clean the aluminium pods for reuse?
Charlotte: The first step is to remove the coffee grounds in the aluminium pods. Then, I will place the hundreds of coffee capsules in a bucket of hot water with soap overnight. After that, flush or clean them one by one to make sure the coffee grounds and stains are cleaned. As well as, the strong smell of coffee is removed.
AL Circle: How parallel is Wind.n.Sand’s ideology with the global ESG Standards?
Charlotte: More goals will be targeted to reach when expanding Wind.n.Sand, but the present ideas are:
AL Circle: Does Wind.n.Sand promote remelting exercises? If not, then how do they give shape to jewellery and key chains from used coffee pods?
Charlotte: So far, I haven’t invented the skill of remelting exercise, but I am planning to do it when I have my own studio. I use tools such as tweezers and small scissors to reshape coffee capsules into jewellery and key chains, also with the help of different kinds of glues and crystal decorations to complete a product.
AL Circle: How many coffee pods are being removed by Wind.n.Sand each year from the landfills? Do you think it is enough to make a difference?
Charlotte: Definitely not enough to make a difference for the earth. I removed around 500-1000 coffee pods from landfills each month only, so a total of 6000-12000 coffee pods only. It’s also one of my short-term goals to expand my handicraft business to “save” and recycle more coffee pods from landfills. By increasing the demand for coffee pods’ art and accessories, I can recycle and collect more used coffee pods.
AL Circle: Where do you wish to take Wind.n.Sand in the next five years?
Charlotte: In the short term, I wish to bring Wind.n.Sand to international markets through joining different craft fairs in Asia and in Europe. Also, I wish Wind.n.Sand would have more long-term collaborators on upcycling workshops as education is so important in environmental protection.
In the long term, I hope Wind.n.Sand can be known as a famous upcycling jewellery designer brand all over the world through discovering more forms of material and media, creating an upcycling brand with more diversity. Although it seems difficult, I would like to give it a try and see how far fashionable jewellery made with recycled material can go. Nonetheless, I hope I can have my own shop in the landmark of Hong Kong or even in other countries.
