Concept | Bad Beers, good waste¶
5 Ws who, what, when, where, why¶
who¶
Bad Beers, good waste is a project developed around the upcycling of micro-breweries waste. It seems to be a trend to drink beer, cider, light beverages. And to try to produce it by ourself, by learning new skills. There are communities of home-brewers, and an increasing number of training workshops organized by breweries.
My family is producing beer at a very small scale in Normandy. And I took part in brewing workshops in Paris and Brussels too.
I see like an opportunie to start from this craft experience to propose an open-source project, wich could become a product and/or a process for creative people interested in beer and/or biomaterials.
what¶
Home-scale beer production requires more malt in ratio than industrial production, so the brewing process takes less time. This waste, as well as liquids waste from brewing, can be upcycled thanks to a wide range of biomaterials techniques.
After some hesitation and a lot of experimentations, I decided to select the combination of brewing waste (BSG & liquid waste) and Agar, and to develop bio-foil solutions. The area of application I have chosen is beauty, to present the health benefits of beer on skin. The bio-foils are becoming face masks, which naturally contain skin-friendly ingredients such as vitamin B12. It can be combined with essential oils & natural serum depending on skins specifics.
Tip
The Aroma-zone website, proposing a lot of recipes and natural ingredients to make beauty products.
when¶
I am very interested in developing tools next to defining final product applications. And I thought, according to my mentors during the project, that it would be interesting to propose a kit for valorization of beer waste. Dedicated to brewers, to designers who would like to take over the project, or for private individuals who have industrial beer waste. So different timings for upcycling.
Tip
The week 10 was dedicated to Open-Source Hardware. We did a lot a 3D printing during this week focused on tooling, and I used these learnings later for my development project. Thingiverse is a great resource for 3D models of tools.
where¶
I would like to keep the maker & local spirit behind my researchs, and not to try to reach industrial scales problematics wich seems solved very differently. To propose solutions with a workshop format later, for example for third places hosting breweries or distilleries, and potentially for local spas, wich are part of flemish culture in Belgium, in the same way as beer.
Tip
Some spas & thermal springs around there in Belgium : Bath & Barley - Good Beer Spa - Waer Waters - Thermae Grimbergen.
Bug
I like the communitie & tooling approach of Precious Plastic.
why¶
It seems interesting to value composition of upcycled materials. And to reduce the packaging footprint of beauty masks by producing it on our own, with a glass mold that is easy to clean and very durable in time. Upcycle beer waste, and potentially reduce plastic and aluminium production.
Tip
An article from Vogue Business about beauty industry waste.
Moodboards¶
get inspired!
These references are available in a open Miro board with other weeks inspirations : INSPIRATIONS
And the project steps are here : DEVELOPMENT