News

Starbucks making detergent from coffee grinds

August 29, 2012

Starbucks Hong Kong is on a mission to turn its coffee grinds and stale muffins into laundry detergent. Each year, Hong Kong company produces about 5,000 tons of used coffee grounds and unconsumed baked goods that get thrown away, so it's testing a recycling process to help cut the waste, according to the NY Daily News.

At a "biofinery" at the City University of Hong Kong, scientists are attempting to trasform food waste into useful products, similar to the way oil refineries convert petroleum into fuel and other ingredients for use in consumer products. Biorefineries, however, transform corn, sugar cane, and other plant-based material into bio-based fuels and other products, according to the story.

The process involves combining the old baked goods and coffee grinds with a fungi mixture to break down the carbohydrates into simple sugars. Scientists then ferment it all in a vat, where "bacteria transform the sugars into succinic acid, a key material that's used to produce everything from laundry detergent, plastic, to medicine, " scientists said in the story.

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