2026 Galleries

2026 Galleries // 2026 Spark: Spring Student // DUSTO

DUSTO

Winner - Silver

Competition: Spark: Spring Student
Designer: Namhun Kim
Design Type: Packaging
Company / Organization / School: Chosun University
Team Members: Namhun Kim, Kang Jihye & Jeong Judong

DUSTO is an on-site circular economy platform that transforms spent coffee grounds into new products directly inside cafés. Rather than relying on conventional recycling systems that require collection, transportation, and centralized processing, DUSTO enables coffee grounds to be recycled where they are generated. By bringing resource circulation into everyday spaces, the project makes sustainability visible, tangible, and participatory for both café operators and customers.
Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world, generating enormous amounts of spent coffee grounds every day. A typical espresso-based drink uses approximately 18–20 grams of coffee grounds, and after extraction this material is usually discarded despite retaining significant potential as a reusable resource. While various recycling methods already exist, most depend on centralized infrastructures that require waste collection, transportation, storage, and industrial processing before new value can be created. These systems consume additional energy, require complex logistics, and remain largely invisible to the people who generate the waste. As a result, consumers rarely understand or experience how coffee grounds are transformed into valuable materials, making the circular economy feel distant from everyday life.
DUSTO was developed from a different perspective. Instead of asking how coffee grounds could simply be recycled more efficiently, the project asks how people can actively experience resource circulation. Sustainability is more likely to become part of everyday behavior when people can directly observe, participate in, and understand the transformation of waste into value. Therefore, the project focuses not only on material recycling but also on redesigning the relationship between people and waste through meaningful interaction.
The overall user experience is inspired by the familiar workflow of espresso preparation. In cafés, disposing of spent coffee grounds is already part of the daily routine. DUSTO integrates naturally into this workflow by placing an integrated knock box on the top of the product. After brewing coffee, the barista simply disposes of the spent coffee grounds into the knock box as usual. Users then select an interchangeable mold according to the desired product. Inside the machine, the coffee grounds are dried to remove excess moisture, mixed with a binder, and formed through compression and heat. The finished object is produced directly inside the café without requiring any external transportation or processing.
Rather than concealing the manufacturing process, DUSTO intentionally makes the transformation visible. Users can observe how waste gradually becomes a useful object, creating an immediate connection between consumption and regeneration. This physical experience encourages people to perceive coffee grounds not as disposable waste but as a valuable material with a second life. Instead of asking users to recycle, DUSTO allows them to experience recycling itself.
The modular mold system enables one machine to produce a wide range of everyday products, including cup sleeves, coasters, trays, plant pots, and other small accessories. By simply replacing the mold, cafés can respond to different operational needs without replacing the entire system. This modularity extends the product's lifespan, increases flexibility, and creates opportunities for future expansion as new mold designs become available.
One of the project's key innovations is its proposal of an on-site circular economy model. Conventional recycling systems move waste away before value is created. DUSTO reverses this process by creating value exactly where waste is generated. Processing materials on-site reduces unnecessary transportation, storage, and external manufacturing while significantly shortening the recycling cycle. More importantly, it transforms recycling from an invisible industrial infrastructure into a public and understandable experience.
This approach also redefines the role of cafés. Rather than functioning solely as places of consumption that continuously generate waste, cafés become small-scale production environments where discarded materials are immediately transformed into useful products. Customers are no longer passive consumers who simply purchase coffee; they become participants in a circular system where their everyday actions contribute to resource regeneration. This shift encourages greater awareness of material value while strengthening the relationship between people, products, and place.
The environmental benefits extend beyond material reuse. By processing coffee grounds at the point of generation, DUSTO minimizes unnecessary transportation and intermediate handling while encouraging localized production. Equally important is its social impact. Visible participation helps build stronger public understanding of sustainability and encourages behavioral change through direct experience rather than information alone. Instead of presenting sustainability as an obligation, DUSTO transforms it into an intuitive, engaging, and rewarding activity.
Although initially designed for cafés, the platform has the potential to expand into other environments where organic waste is continuously generated, including offices, universities, hotels, and community spaces. Its adaptable workflow and interchangeable mold system provide a scalable framework for future applications while maintaining the same principle of on-site material circulation.
Ultimately, DUSTO is not simply a machine for recycling coffee grounds. It is a design proposal that reimagines how people interact with waste, materials, and sustainability. By relocating resource circulation to the exact place where waste is generated, the project transforms an invisible industrial process into an everyday experience that people can see, understand, and participate in.
Every cup of coffee produces waste, but it also creates an opportunity to begin a new cycle. DUSTO demonstrates that meaningful circular economy systems do not necessarily require larger infrastructures or more complex technologies. Sometimes, the most effective solution is to bring value creation back to where waste begins. Through this simple yet meaningful shift, DUSTO proposes a future in which cafés become places where consumption, production, and sustainability coexist, allowing circular economy to become part of everyday culture rather than something that happens somewhere else.