Millions of coffee capsules are used around the world every day as coffee lovers, including guests at The Table Bay hotel in Cape Town, get their caffeine fix.

When Joanne Selby, the hotel's General Manager, learned about sculpture artist Godfrey Dambuleni creating beautiful works made from used Nespresso capsules, she commissioned the artist to make a version of Oscar the Seal, The Table Bay’s mascot, using spent capsules from the hotel.

Dambuleni, a Zimbabwean who has lived in South Africa for the past 23 years, runs a studio in Salt River employing a team of seven who help him prepare the raw materials, including recycled tins and sheet metal, bicycle chains and used aluminium coffee capsules, with which he creates beautiful and distinctive artwork.

“I have been using Nespresso capsules for almost five years, making elephants, rhinos, human beings and more,” says Dambuleni. “Oscar was the first seal I had ever made and took me about three weeks to make,” the artist said of the 1.5m-high statue, made from 3 000 capsules.

The original bronze statue of Oscar the Seal stands almost 3m tall outside The Table Bay at the V&A Waterfront, created by Danie de Jager.

“The aluminium coffee capsules are a very useful material, being soft and malleable. They can be used in many ways. Before I can use them, my team clean out the coffee grounds and flatten them to make small sheets of metal,” Dambuleni adds.

Dambuleni and his workers also use the coffee grounds as fertiliser to grow vegetables.

Selby said The Table Bay was at the forefront of green consciousness and that the hotel took sustainable awareness very seriously, recycling plastic, cardboard, aluminium, and glass.