Cafe takes recycling trend to new level

Located on a small alley of Hàng Tre Street in Hanoi’s Old Quarter, 95 percent of the items at the Hidden Gem Coffee have been recycled (Photo: Vietnam+)

The coffee shop has four floors and each has a distinctive design (Photo: Vietnam+)

Many discarded plastic bottles have been used to decorate the ceiling, creating an eye-catching look (Photo: Vietnam+)

Owner of the shop, Nguyen Van Tho has spent time decorating the shop with his creativeness and meticulousness (Photo: Vietnam+)

Discarded wheels, wheel parts and plastic items have been turned into interior decorations at the coffee shop (Photo: Vietnam+)

The idea to build this unique cafe came to 35-year-old Nguyen Van Tho after he saw the serious pollution in his hometown in Yen Phong, Bac Ninh province, where a lot of waste and sewage are dumped into the river (Photo: Vietnam+)

Nguyen Van Tho explained that the name of the café represents its core value. ‘It comes from the teaching of my grandmother that we should not hastily throw anything away, but consider it carefully, and maybe we can discover its unexpected values.’ (Photo: Vietnam+)

‘From the moment I got the idea to making it real, it was such a long process. Two friends and I travelled to many places, Bac Ninh, Hoa Binh, Phu Tho, etc., to search for things in many scrap shops and even landfills to get discarded items, bring them back, study and try to incorporate them into a design for the coffee shop,’ Tho said (Photo: Vietnam+)

The cafe attracts a lot of foreigners (Photo: Vietnam+)

Dragonfly made from discarded plastic bottles (Photo: Vietnam+)

The mural paintings on the wall leave a good impression on customers (Photo: Vietnam+)

(Photo: Vietnam+)

(Photo: Vietnam+)

(Photo: Vietnam+)

(Photo: Vietnam+)

(Photo: Vietnam+)

The coffee shop has four floors and each has a distinctive design (Photo: Vietnam+)

(Photo: Vietnam+)

Bicycle wheels and old plastic bottles are key decorative items (Photo: Vietnam+)

(Photo: Vietnam+)

These benches are made from discarded bed frames and an old, broken motorbike becomes a table (Photo: Vietnam+)

(Photo: Vietnam+)

(Photo: Vietnam+)