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Photo by the blowup on Unsplash
Each year in the UK, 10 million tonnes of food and drink are wasted, releasing around 22 million tonnes of greenhouse gases.
According to Statista, in 2019 an average person created 392 kg of household waste in England, which eventually ends up on a landfill site.
Waste is the typical outcome for products which are not recycled or reused, thus reaching their last stage in the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). As you may know, landfills release an abundance of greenhouse gases, which are extremely harmful to our planet; the most potent being methane, a gas 28 times more damaging than carbon dioxide. Collectively the two gases contribute approximately 5% of global GHG emissions.
At this point you might be thinking, well what does this have to do with coffee? And to answer that I am going to give one number. 500,000. This is the amount in tonnes of wasted spent ground coffee (SCG) (remains of coffee beans after they’re brewed) each year in the UK.
But this doesn’t have to be the case; in fact there are so many ways you can get creative with the SCG, one being to fertilize your garden by giving your soil extra minerals and nutrition for plant growth. There are other cool ways you can save your SCG from the landfill, check out this link.
Sustainability has very much taken centre stage recently at Foundry Coffee Roasters. We have already converted to using 100% recyclable and/or compostable packaging to deliver your delicious speciality roasted coffee directly to your homes.
Our coffee bags are made from a recyclable low-density polyethylene, and our retail boxes are made from card and a home compostable material called NatureFlex, made of wood chips. If you would like to learn more about our packaging please read our blog post here and here.
By using recyclable and compostable packaging, we are reducing the amount of waste created from our products, and helping to save them from ending up in landfill - as long as you play your part too of course!
This is just one example in which we have consciously reduced our carbon footprint as a company, but we know there is much more to be done. There are so many exciting new ventures and projects we are working on to become ever more sustainable and environmentally-friendly.
If you are wondering how you can reduce your own waste, click on the links below for inspiration.
https://www.wwf.org.uk/reduce-waste
https://www.madeleineolivia.co.uk/blog/30-ways-to-reduce-your-waste
References
https://www.statista.com/statistics/322535/total-household-waste-volumes-in-england-uk-per-person/
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/made-at-ucl/stories/turning-used-coffee-clean-energy
https://greenearthappeal.org/carbon-free-coffee/
Written by Eleanor Bragg.
