Log In Sign Up

Search for any green Service

Find green products from around the world in one place

Window cleaning

Singapore Safety Glass

Tag: Coffee

Danish City First To Test Return System For Reusable Coffee Cups

Posted on by dishanth
Danish City First To Test Return System For Reusable Coffee Cups

The Danish city of Aarhus launched a three-year trial program to curve down the number of disposable coffee cups where locals can use a deposit system for reusable takeaway packages.

Like in other Nordic and Central European countries, in Denmark deposit system where one receives back money one pays when purchasing a plastic bottles or cans is already in place

The project that focused on eliminating disposable cups trash is the result of a collaboration between the Municipality of Aarhus and the recycling company TOMRA which already provides other waste collection services to the city.

For a year and a half in 2022, the company All In On Green’s robotic arm SeaProtectorOne deployed in the water, collected over 100,000 disposable glasses from the city’s river Å – from which the city derived its name – demonstrating a huge level of plastic pollution in the city.

”Aarhus must be greener and more sustainable, and Aarhus must be a city where we have the courage to test new solutions.” said Nicolaj Bang, Aarhus’ councillor for technology and environment in a press release. “We use enormous amounts of takeaway packaging in Denmark, and consumption is increasing. Therefore, it really matters if we can make it easier for both consumers and businesses to choose a more sustainable alternative to disposable packaging,” he stated.

Aarhus is the second biggest city in Denmark, counting around 336,000 inhabitants – and potential disposable cup users. The trial has been set as voluntary, but so far already 44 cafés and bars in the center of the city got interested in the project – perhaps even some frequented by King Frederik X, when he used to study at the city’s university.

Initially, 40,000 cups in two designs will be produced and around 25 deposit machines will be established in the city so that citizens can return their cups, and cash back some Danish kroner. Geir Sæther, senior vice president for circular economy at TOMRA said the company expects ‘to be able to expand the system to other types of packaging in the near future’, so to facilitate the transition from single-use to reusable packaging.

The return fee for a reused cup is just over 70 dollar cents (DKK 5) , but it is not for the money that citizens should start returning their cups: ”Recycling saves the earth’s resources and our emission of CO2. More recycling means that there is less waste that ends up as rubbish in our city and our nature,” said Bang.

This is the first city in Denmark, and the world, to carry out such city experiments, although Copenhagen had previously trialed an experimental system where pizza containers, sushi trays and coffee cups should be able to be returned in the hip area of Kødbyen, situated in a central neighborhood. Currently, Danish startup Kleen hub is experimenting in the capital with its third-generation return system based on a single bank card tap.

TOMRA’s ceo Tove Andersen said in a press release that “Aarhus shows the way to one more sustainable future, and we hope that many more cities will be inspired to do the same,”.

Cities and regional authorities have so far acted upon consumer behaviors to decrease different kinds of pollution in their cities: “These policies are quietly working because local governments are addressing climate change with communities long-term together with other challenges that people care about, like healthy diets and supporting local businesses,” said Olivier de Schutter, co-chair of the sustainable food system expert team IPES-Food.

 

 

 

 

Source  Forbes

 

 

The Starbucks Plan to Minimize Waste

Posted on by dishanth
The Starbucks Plan to Minimize Waste

In 2022, Starbucks announced a company goal to reduce waste sent to landfills from stores and direct operations. The goal was to reduce waste by 50% by 2030. Part of Starbucks plan to minimize waste is to move away from single-use plastics and promote reusability to shift towards a circular economy. It is said that 40 percent of Starbucks’ annual packaging is attributed to disposable cups. Moreover, these cups account for 20 percent of its waste footprint.

The Starbucks plan to minimize waste focusses on reducing its environmental impact; the coffee company hopes to create a cultural movement towards reusables by giving customers easy access to personal or Starbucks-provided reusable to-go cups that can be used in their cafes, drive-thrus, and mobile order and pay.

The Starbucks plan to minimize waste includes several reusable programs to help achieve its goals. They have been testing these programs in phases since 2022. Their Borrow a Cup program allows customers to order their drink in a designated Starbucks reusable cup. The cups are designed to be returned to the stores after use, professionally cleaned, and then reused by other customers. This project is being tested in Seattle, Japan, Singapore, and London.

In 2022, Starbucks implemented 100% reusable operating models, eliminating single-use cups completely. They tested this in 12 stores in Seoul, which helped to divert more than 200,000 disposable cups from the landfill. In early 2023, Starbucks tested their 100% reusables operating models at stores at Arizona State University. They also implemented return bins across the campus near garbage and recycling bins to collect the borrowed cups.

The Personal Cups & For-Here-Ware initiative encourages customers to bring their own cups. Starbucks began testing this initiative at their experiential Greener Store in Shanghai. Furthermore, Starbucks has been developing ways to incentivize customers to bring their own cups. This includes offering free coffee or discounts to customers who bring their own cups. They’ve also partnered with the Ocean Conservancy to donate 1$ to the organization if customers bring in their clean, reusable cups. At their Arizona State University campus stores and cafes in O’ahu, Hawaii, they have started implementing washing stations so customers can have their cups cleaned before ordering their beverage.

Because disposable cups are still in circulation, Starbucks is looking at ways to make the cups more sustainable and out of better materials. They are working on doubling the hot cup recycled content and reducing the materials required to make the cup and liner. The paper used for their hot cups will be sustainably sourced and certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. Over $5 million has been invested to develop a more sustainable hot cup. By the end of 2023, Starbucks will have eliminated PFAS from all of their packaging. Starbucks has already switched from plastic straws to compostable ones in stores across the globe.

The Starbucks plan to minimize waste is still in the trial phases of its programs. It needs to address a few concerns, including the best ways to collect and wash the cups and especially to figure out the best ways to encourage bringing the reusable cups back and not simply throwing them away. Moreover, they need to figure out how to make the lids of their hot cups recyclable and compostable and to encourage people to throw the contents in the right places.

It is encouraging to see a big company like Starbucks working to reduce waste and be more environmentally friendly in the ways they do business. Hopefully, Starbucks’ plans to minimize waste will influence more coffee shops around the world tol follow suit and help us reduce plastic and disposable cups and promote reusable alternatives.

 

 

 

 

Source  Happy Eco News

Coffee Biochar Concrete Carbon Sequestration

Posted on by dishanth
Coffee Biochar Concrete Carbon Sequestration

Coffee is one of the most popular drinks worldwide; on average, 400 billion cups of coffee are consumed each year. As a result, approximately 18 million tonnes of coffee grounds are produced annually. Coffee grounds can be used for a variety of purposes. It can be used to fertilize your garden or added to compost. Coffee grounds can neutralize odors, can be used to exfoliate your skin, tenderize meats, and many other uses.

Despite all of these amazing uses for coffee grounds, the reality is that most of the coffee grounds produced actually end up in landfills; about 75% in fact. Rotting coffee grounds generate methane, a powerful greenhouse gas contributing to warming. Rotting coffee grounds also emit carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and ammonia. While there have been programs from coffee shops that will donate their coffee grounds to customers to use in their gardens (Starbucks has been part of the Grounds for Your Garden program since 1995), but most coffee shops are not implementing these initiatives.

Researchers from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University in Australia have found a way to use coffee grounds on a larger scale and to eliminate the risk of them ending up in landfills. And that is to use coffee biochar concrete in the construction industry.

The researchers have developed concrete that is almost 30 percent stronger than traditional concrete by mixing in coffee-derived biochar. The coffee biochar was created using a low-energy process called pyrolysis. The organic waste is heated to 350 degrees Celsius without oxygen to avoid the risk of generating carbon dioxide. Under pyrolysis, organic molecules vibrate and break down into smaller components, creating biochar. This is a similar process that is used to roast unused beans to enhance their taste, except without the use of oxygen.

In coffee biochar concrete, about 15 percent of the sand they would use to make concrete is replaced with the coffee biochar, thus creating new concrete. The coffee biochar is finer than sand, and its porous qualities help to bind to organic material. Reducing the total use of sand in concrete will minimize the construction industry’s environmental footprint. It is said that over 50 billion metric tons of natural sand are used annually in construction. Sand mining significantly stresses ecosystems, including riverbeds and riverbanks, coffee biochar concrete can relieve some of that pressure on the environment.

The cement industry is the third largest source of industrial air pollution, including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and carbon monoxide. Moreover, cement currently accounts for around 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions. Turning coffee- biochar into concrete will reduce the construction industry’s reliance on continuous mining of natural resources, making the industry more sustainable.

When introduced into concrete mixtures, the coffee biochar concrete was found to act as a microscopic carbon repository within the concrete matrix. The alkaline conditions within hardened concrete enable biochar to mineralize and firmly bind carbon dioxide into its structure over time. Concrete containing even a small percentage of spent coffee biochar was shown to sequester meaningful quantities of CO2 from the curing process and surrounding environment.

Utilizing waste coffee grounds to synthesize biochar for carbon sequestration could offer a sustainable way to offset concrete’s sizable carbon footprint while giving new purpose to spent grounds. With further research, coffee biochar concrete could provide a feasible carbon capture pathway for the construction industry.

The researchers estimate that if all the waste grounds produced in Australia annually could be converted into coffee biochar, it would amount to roughly 22,500 tonnes. Compare that to the 28 million tonnes of sand that are required to produce over 72 million tonnes of cement concrete in Australia. Just think: Australia has over 13 thousand coffee shops, whereas the United States has over 38 thousand coffee shops. If this project expands outside of Australia, coffee biochar concrete could significantly impact the environment and waste.

The research on coffee biochar concrete is still in the early stages; there is still a lot of testing to be done, but it shows that there are innovative and unique ways to reduce and repurpose organic landfill waste. Once the researchers can account for things like durability, the researchers will collaborate with local councils on future infrastructure projects, including the construction of walkways and pavements. Just think, we are one step closer to adding sustainability into the construction industry and one step closer to walking on coffee biochar concrete!

 

 

 

 

Source   Happy Eco News

JDE Peet’s announce new sustainable coffee packaging

Posted on by dishanth
JDE Peet’s announce new sustainable coffee packaging

JDE Peet’s is an American-Dutch coffee and tea company with a portfolio of over 50 brands including L’OR, Peet’s, Jacobs, Senseo, Tassimo, Douwe Egberts, Old Town, Super, Pickwick and Moccona.

In 2022, JDE Peet’s generated total sales of US$9.2bn, employed a global workforce of more than 20,000 employees and served approximately 4,200 cups of coffee or tea per second.

Pioneers: Sustainable packaging launch

JDE Peet’s have launched a first-of-its-kind packaging for its soluble coffee ranges as part of its net zero sustainability initiatives.

The paper packaging is recyclable and encourages consumers to reuse glass and plastic jars already in circulation.

“This is an important step in driving the sustainability agenda of our company and yet another sign of our leadership in innovation. We know that reducing packaging and promoting recyclability and reusability are increasing consumer needs,” says Fabien Simon, CEO of JDE Peet’s.

“By providing more sustainable solutions within soluble coffee, one of the world’s most beloved and consumed beverages, we can maximize our positive contribution in decarbonizing our own portfolios and the coffee market as a whole.”

Sustainability at the heart of coffee production

The packaging launch supports JDE Peet’s efforts to use 100% reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging by 2030 — 78% of its packaging is currently.

The company’s ESG initiatives operate throughout the brands, from sustainable sourcing, to burning waste coffee at factories to save landfill.

The Common Grounds programme champions an inclusive and regenerative ecosystem comprised of three pillars:

  • Responsible Sourcing — championing regenerative agriculture to enhance livelihoods and positively impact our planet. JDE Peet’s achieved its goal of 100% responsibly sourced palm oil by 2025 three years early.
  • Minimizing Footprint — striving towards a planet-positive supply chain through innovation and collaboration on sustainable solutions. JDE Peet’s has achieved zero waste-to-landfill at 22 of its 43 manufacturing facilities, and is aiming for all 43 by 2025.
  • Connecting People — engaging colleagues and communities to support wellbeing and promote equal opportunity. JDE Peet’s have 40% women in leadership positions, a target it had set for 2025.

“Having set carbon reduction targets with the science based targets initiative, we priorities energy efficiency projects,” says Dyfrig Davies, Engineering Manager at the JDE Coffee Manufacturing Factory in Banbury, UK.

“We’ve committed to these targets and now we have to deliver them. we’re taking action for humanity — and doing right by the planet is the right thing to do for our business as well.”