This is the firs project I want to present in this serie of posts, because it was also the one, who gave me the idea of starting those coffee related posts.
In the Netherlands around 120 Million Coffee beans are consumed every year. Thats also the reason why the Netherlands can call themselves, fifth largest drinker of coffee in the world. That is nothing to be ashamed of because you already know I love coffee.
But me and some other people where asking ourselves: What about the waste ? Until now there was just the residual waste and the organic waste.
A real smart guy named Marcel Roeleveld, by the way director of Koffie Recycling Nederland, had then the idea of using the coffee grounds as a resource. The idea was to gain energy out of the coffee grounds. And so he started experimenting with some briketts and pellets. The change from normal pellets to organic pellets, could reduce a great amount of CO2 emissions.
It became apparent that, if every Dutch company would switch to organic-pellets there would be a saving of 93.000 tons of CO2 in the atmosphere. This would be equal to a car driving 20.000 times around the globe.
In collaboration with SUEZ, they are now trying to develop a recycling solution. There are already further companies who are convinced and want to start with the recycling of their coffee ground. In the Netherlands there are already collecting routes and storage mediums, therefore a company can become a member of the group with only a few steps.
At the moment they are researching for even more benefits of recycling coffee ground, like for example wether they can use it to grow mushrooms or maybe even up-cycle them to organic plastic. It is important to see that coffee can be so much more than just a beverage.
Now to the product:
The coffee bean, as already written above, is used to brew the coffee and then goes to the waste.
The bean is very woody and a lot of studies found that the energetic value exceeds the value of normal wood by 25%.
With an unique procedure the coffee ground is mixed and pressed into hard pellets, so that they burn, beautiful, controlled and clean.
The pellets, have a high heat efficiency and the remains of the ashes are less than the remains of normal wood pellets. Because the pellets are made in the Netherlands, they can reduce logistic costs and CO2 emissions. A new heat source is found which can be used to heat pools, offices and homes.
I am very happy that I have found this idea and hope that you find it as inspiring as me…
For more information, check out their website:
https://www.koffierecyclingnederland.nl/
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