InDisposed

Artifact
Medium: Used coffee grinds, non-toxic binder
Dimensions: 12” long x 6” wide x 6” tall 

For InDisposed, Salgado wanted to diversify by using a waste material other than wood, as he normally does. “Analyzing my daily habits to see which produced a usable—but generally discarded—byproduct, it struck me that after making coffee I always toss the used grinds,” says Salgado. “I realized these could be dried and then cast into a solid element using non-toxic binder.” Collaborating with Local—a SoHo café that uses shade-grown, fair-trade organic coffee—he sculpted elemental planters that can be buried after use to decompose without harming plant life.

About Carlos Salgado:

Carlos Salgado cofounded Scrapile with Bart Bettencourt in 2003 with the objective to showcase how wood-waste from local industry and workshops could be diverted from landfills—and reintroduced into our daily lives as useful, high-quality furniture. Although best known for crafting laminated-wood furniture from salvaged scraps, the studio has recently expanded to include collaborations with manufacturers working in a variety of media, helping devise new ideas for their waste streams.