While England might be better known for its tea, Londoners certainly have a taste for coffee. And the waste grounds will soon be heating home’s in the United Kingdom’s capital. This article from the London Evening Standard says Bio-bean is collecting waste coffee grounds to be turned into biomass pellets.
Although only a couple of hundred tonnes will be collected each week at first, Bio-bean spokesman Daniel Crockett expects the firm to be processing the equivalent of 50,000 tonnes a year by 2016.
“We wanted to build it inside London,” Mr Crockett told the Standard, “but we aren’t at that stage yet.
“We’re collecting from cafes, office blocks and transport hubs – we’re filling up the Monopoly board!”
While Bio-bean does not pay the coffee shops – which include cafes in big-name firms and all seven of London’s biggest rail stations – its collection service saves them coughing up potentially costly landfill fees.
At peak production, the Southwark business will be producing enough pellets to heat 15,000 homes. The pellets will be burnt in efficient biomass boilers to produce energy.
Bio-bean is also looking at turning the oil in the coffee grounds into biodiesel.
