More ways to recycle coffee…

You have probably heard the old adage about using coffee grounds as a sort of fertilizer – some coffee shops even give their old grounds out to green-fingered customers, who want to give their plants a little treat.

However, there has been a new story in the news recently and this time it seems that more can be done than meets the eye to help to make the most of food wastage.

What’s the story?

It seems that the American Chemical Society are looking into a way to put old coffee grounds to another use, together with stale bakery goods.

The idea is to use these products in a ‘biorefinery’ which effectively transforms the waste food products into succinic acid.

Why succinic acid?

Because it is one of the main ingredients in the production of certain high-value products, including plastics, medicine and also laundry detergents.

How does this happen?

Apparently, it is all to do with mixing the old foodstuffs with certain fungi, which then go to work to break down the carbohydrates into certain sugars.

And these sugars can then be turned into succinic acid.

If this development work on such biorefineries is successful, there are wonderful advantages to be had.

For instance, some of the 1.3 billion tons of food which is wasted each year would be recycled.

The use of coffee grounds would avoid the current disposal of this waste in the coffee industry, which is often by incineration or disposal in landfills.