Paying homage to the phrase “waste not, want not”, an Auckland-based couple is turning leftover coffee grounds into a range of upcycled raw materials – including a new kind of bioplastic.
Dr Wageeh and Dr Abeer Dabdawb are originally from Iraq but moved to New Zealand five years ago, and are now on a mission to make Aotearoa’s coffee culture more environmentally sustainable with their new coffee waste biorefinery Caffology.
Although they remain tight-lipped about the actual process, the Dabdawbs say they are now able to turn coffee grounds into a pigment (used to make dye), oils (used in cosmetic and beauty products), fibre and extracts (used in food and cosmetics), and a new kind of bioplastic in a zero waste process.
Although similar products have been developed around the world, with businesses using coffee waste to make things like coffee leather, coffee cups and even coffee-based biofuels, Caffology is believed to be the first coffee waste biorefinery in New Zealand.
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The Dabdawbs’ say their new bioplastic, Caf-BioPlastic, can be used to make indoor furniture, golf tees, seedling grafting clips and coffee mugs, for example.
“The list goes on and on, but what we really hope is that one day there can be a café made entirely of coffee, all the way from the tables and chairs to the mug you’re drinking your coffee out of,” Wageeh said.
Caf-BioPlastic combines coffee grounds with a plant-based bioplastic to create a stronger, more durable alternative that biodegrades in between 15 and 100 days, if in soil.
“Over the past 10 or so years bioplastics already on the market have been found to have a number of mechanical flaws, which make them weaker than traditional plastics and leave them producing methane – a greenhouse gas 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide – when left in landfills,” Wageeh said.
The Beach Haven-based couple began the journey from beverage to bioplastic during the first Covid-19 lockdown.
“When we first went into lockdown we bought a coffee machine and between the six of us that were living at home – myself, my wife, our son and three daughters – we were producing a considerable amount of waste, so we started to think about what we could be doing to utilise this waste.
“Once we started looking into coffee wastage levels around the world, we realised that we needed to start rapidly rethinking the way we treat coffee waste,” Abeer said.
Each year the average New Zealander drinks approximately 2.2kg of the much-loved bean, but for each cup of double shot coffee 99.8% of each bean goes to waste.
With a background in organic chemistry, the Dabdawb’s basement became a laboratory as they tried to find a way to turn the coffee industry from a linear economy into a circular one – that is, an economy fuelled by upcycled coffee by-products.
“The coffee bean has so much value beyond the average cup of coffee, but we’re currently throwing it away after we’ve extracted just a bit of caffeine and some oils. At Caffology we tap into coffee’s full potential.”
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