In an effort to reduce its carbon footprint of 1.3 billion tons of food waste, Starbucks coffee company has started working with biorefinery scientists to transform its food waste into key ingredients for making bio-plastics, laundry detergents and other everyday products.
The coffee giant hopes to use the used coffee grounds and expired bakery goods—that are usually thrown out, incinerated, composted or disposed of in landfills—to turn them into something useful.
Scientists are looking to convert waste into useful products, while at the same time avoiding incineration and reducing pollutants in the atmosphere.
“Our new process addresses the food waste problem, by turning Starbucks’ trash into treasure—detergent ingredients and bio-plastics that can be incorporated into other useful products,” leader of the biorefinery research team, Carol S K Lin, PhD, said. “The strategy reduces the environmental burden of food waste, produces a potential income from this waste and is a sustainable solution.”
The project is currently taking place in Hong Kong.
[via Starbucks]