UM Recycling: Coffee Waste

What's the first thing you do in the morning? For many of us, it's the routine action of filling up the coffee pot and measuring out coffee grounds. The day just doesn’t start until after having that first hot cup of liquid caffeine.

Coffee wakes us up, but many of us are still sleeping through the alarm that is the enormous amount of coffee related waste. Fortunately, there are innovative ways to handle this waste from coffee production to the coffee in your hand.

Coffee waste commonly comes in three forms: cherry pulp, used coffee grounds, and coffee accessories.

Cherry Pulp

To get a coffee bean, you need to extract the seed from a coffee cherry. While the coffee bean will processed, exported, and made into a delicious cup of joe, the cherry is often discarded. Imagine for every coffee bean you bought from the store there was a matching cherry thrown away.

Here are some ways that coffee farmers and companies are reducing coffee pulp waste:

Cattle feed

Coffee pulp can replace commercial concentrates in cattle feed, meaning more savings for local farmers and boost to the agricultural economy in coffee-growing countries!

Mushroom growing substrate

Coffee farmers can also use coffee pulp to create a substrate for mushrooms to grow in. Coffee pulp encourages fast growth and the mushrooms mean extra income for coffee farmers.

Coffee flour

Coffee pulp can also be made into flour for baking! The flour doesn’t taste like coffee at all and it's gluten free.

Used Coffee Grounds

We all know what used coffee grounds are, but did you know that they can be used in…

Jeans

Each pair of Denim X Cafe jeans made by American Eagle Outfitters is made with 2.25 grams of used coffee grounds.

Furniture

Designer, Adam Fairweather, creates furniture made with materials containing 60% used coffee grounds.

Compost

Anyone can dispose their coffee grounds into the compost bin!

Biofuel

A company called Bio-bean transforms old coffee beans into pellets that are used to heat homes.

Coffee Accessories

Coffee accessories are all of extra items that go along with preparing and serving coffee for the consumer. While that coffee stirrer and Starbucks cup may seem like a small amount of waste, thousands of people are throwing away filters, cups, stirrers, coffee sleeves, and sugar packets every day!

Here are some tips to reduce the waste incurred by preparing your favorite cup of coffee:

Use a reusable mug or to-go cup when you purchase a drink from the coffee shop. You’ll often get a discounted price for doing so! If you’re planning on staying in the shop while you enjoy your beverage, ask for the drink to be prepared “for here” so that the barista know to give you a mug instead of a throw away cup.
Use creamer and sweetener from a bulk container instead of individual packages and use a reusable spoon to mix
When you make coffee at home, use a compostable coffee filter and throw both the grounds and the filter into the compost bin once your brew is ready. You could even try a reusable metal mesh filter too!
Skip the Keurig, if you want individual coffee portions tryout a French press. A French press will cost you 10% of what a Keurig machine would and you won’t being throwing away dozens of non-recyclable plastic k-cups.