15 June 2021
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2 min read
Credit: bio-bean
Coffee chain inks new two year deal to ensure its used coffee grounds are recycled, delivering significant emissions savings in the process
The coffee beans used to make your morning brew could be enjoying a second life as food flavouring, bioplastics, cosmetics, or sustainable fire logs.
Costa Coffee announced today that following the success of its initial partnership with coffee recycling specialist bio-bean, the chain has inked a two-year partnership extension which will see around 1,500 of its outlets continue to work to ensure all their used coffee grounds are recycled.
The deal builds on a partnership that has been in place since 2016 and sees Costa Coffee outlets segregate spent coffee grounds before sending them to bio-bean's recycling facility near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire.
The grounds are then processed and upcycled into various bio-products, including flavour ingredients for food and beverage manufacturing, as well as a bulk, raw materials which displaces virgin or synthetic materials in a wide range of industrial applications, such as bioplastics, cosmetics, and automotive friction lubricants.
Bio-bean also recycles spent grounds into Coffee Logs: sustainable fire logs for use in domestic wood-burning and multi-fuel stoves, which the company claims can reduce carbon emissions by 80 per cent compared to the grounds being sent to landfill, and 70 per cent compared to the grounds being sent to an anaerobic digestion facility.
A spokesperson for Costa Coffee said the chain was "delighted to be extending our partnership with bio-bean for another two years, helping us further reduce our impact on the environment from bean to cup and beyond".
"We're proud to be working with such an innovative company and together, over the past five years, have put thousands of tonnes of spent Costa coffee grounds to work, transforming them into sustainable, circular bio-based products," they added.
Their comments were echoed by George May, managing director at bio-bean, who said the company was looking forward to "making the most of the relationship, recycling even more spent grounds, further reducing greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to the circular economy, and generally increasing our collective sustainable impact".
