As pressure mounts on the coffee shop sector to clean up its act, Andreina Cordani discovers a company that’s chipping away at the mountains of waste it creates.

Coffee. We love it. As a nation we guzzle 55 million cups a year. It wakes us up in the mornings, it fuels our late nights and the aroma of a fresh brew will even sell your house. But just recently we’ve started asking ourselves what the cost is to the planet.

In the UK we get through seven million disposable coffee cups every day. As for the coffee grounds themselves – we throw out around 500,000 tons of them per annum. Not to mention the food miles and energy consumption it takes to get the beans to us in the first place.

As public awareness of the environmental cost rises, it’s hard to sip on a latte without feeling a little bit uneasy – but how could we make our coffee shop addiction less impactful on the environment?

This was the problem facing architecture student Arthur Kay back in 2013 when he was given the assignment of designing a sustainable coffee shop. As he looked into the concept, he realised that coffee has a lot of energy in it – even after we’ve taken our caffeine hit. He discovered there was a process for turning waste coffee grounds into biofuel – and that nobody was doing it on a large scale.

Fired up by the idea, Arthur raised money through private investment to set up a recycling plant, working with coffee shops and waste management companies to collect old grounds. Initially his company, Bio-Bean, made pellets which burn in industrial-sized biomass boilers, but it has since begun making coffee logs for domestic wood burning stoves (we’re reliably informed that the coffee smell’s minimal to non-existent). It even produces biofuel to power several London buses.

It’s all part of the circular economy: instead of resources travelling in one direction from producer to consumer then to waste, the waste then becomes a product again so the whole process travels full circle. ‘We were founded on the principle that there’s no such thing as waste, just resources in the wrong place,’ says Bio-Bean CEO Chris Harrison. ‘The circular economy is all about extracting the maximum value from a material at every point of its life cycle, including after it has been discarded as waste. We give coffee grounds that would otherwise end up in landfill a second life.’

Five years after its beginnings as a student’s design project, Bio-Bean employs 35 people and has a huge processing plant in Alconbury Weald, Cambridgeshire. Chris, whose original background was in conventional power, came on board enthusiastically. ‘I wanted to move away from the large corporate environment, where meaningful positive impact is driven by financial incentives rather than because it’s just a great thing to do,’ he says. ‘Here we can make a positive difference without waiting for others to show us the way.’

Of course coffee power isn’t a perfect solution – there are no magic bullets when it comes to saving the planet. Biofuel is typically a blend of around 20 per cent biodiesel blended with conventional petroleum diesel – so the buses aren’t purely powered by plants. And they do still produce emissions. However research carried out by the Greater London Authority found 15 per cent less CO2 in biodiesel emissions – a significant cut when the air quality in our cities is at crisis point. Coffee logs and pellets also give off emissions, but they burn efficiently, and Chris says that they are still better than simply trashing the grounds. ‘We had an independent life cycle analysis, looking at the whole journey for the coffee waste and, even taking emissions into account, we still produce up to 90 per cent less greenhouse gas than sending grounds to landfill or disposal by anaerobic digestion.’

He also says their R&D department is constantly working on ways to cut that margin even further. ‘Our coffee oil extracts will soon be used instead of harmful chemicals across a range of different industries, reducing reliance on fossil fuels and virgin resources.’ There are lots of different applications for coffee waste – from flavourings to fragrances.

The best part of it is that the Bio-Bean story offers inspiration to others looking to reuse waste. It’s called urban mining – collecting resources which would otherwise be thrown away and giving them another purpose.It’s happening in other industries too – Snact makes dried fruit snacks out of market surplus fruit, Toast Ale makes beer out of those end bits of bread we never eat. As Chris points out: ‘When you start to see waste differently there are countless business opportunities to be explored across every sector.’

See more info at bio-bean.com or buy coffee logs at coffee-logs.co.uk

Cool beans

Other ways our caffeine buzz can become more sustainable.

Huskee Cup

Coffee starts out life as a berry – the fruit and husk are removed to expose the beans and the husks themselves are usually thrown out, producing 1.3m tons of waste husk per year. Australian company Huskee Cup has developed a way of combining the husks with an organic resin to make ceramic – producing a range of coffee cups. They’re simple, elegant, hard wearing and even dishwasher safe. What could be better than drinking your morning coffee out of… well, coffee?

The product is still at kickstarter, stage but you can find out more by searching Huskee.

Simply Cups

The polyethelene lining in paper coffee cups makes recycling tricky, but Simply Cups uses a specialist pulping process which separates the cups’ lining, which then floats to the top and is skimmed off. The pulp is then recycled into office supplies, cafe and barware or promotional items. Visit simplycups.co.uk

Biodegradable coffee capsules

Coffee pods for Nespresso machines (or similar) are usually made of mixed plastics and aluminium which makes them difficult to recycle but companies are starting to work on this. Halo makes pods (halo.coffee) out of bamboo and paper pulp which break down after use. Dualit has also started making a biodegradable option. See dualit.com.

Artist Steve McPherson collects plastic marine litter from the beaches along the North Kent coast, and from it creates statement artworks that are both questioning and beautiful.

Have you always had an interest in using discarded coastal plastics and found objects in your work?

I grew up on this coast, and the main beaches I go to for collecting plastic are those I spent my childhood on. It’s my home, and very much a part of me. For many years I’ve used found and discarded objects in my work, from collage to sculpture and installation. I once filled a London gallery floor with over 3000 open books, inviting people to step on them. These objects were industrial waste set to be pulped, but powerful symbols that made the audience recoil at my invitation to walk over them. I’ve been collecting objects from the beach for most of my life, from bits of unusual driftwood, to fossils, and other interesting flotsam scattered on the tideline. This moved into collecting with a purpose, to use materials from the beach in the artworks and visual journals I was making at the time. Increasingly plastic was becoming more noticeable amongst the natural colourings of the sea shore, and I would pick up the odd small plastic figure, or toy. I ignored the many broken pieces and shards, which outnumber the more recognisable objects by hundreds, and had a thought that someone should pick this stuff up and do something with it. My next thought was that that could be me, and if I had the shards and considered them a useful material then they would be.

Do the materials you find motivate the final piece? Or do you have a finished artwork in mind then find materials to fit it?

Thy idea behind what to create depends on many things, sometimes it’s an image I’ve been carrying around for a long time in my head, sometimes it’s a solid concept, other times an emotion or feeling dictates. I’m also controlled by what I can and can’t find, and what I have in my reserves of plastic. I rarely go out to look for a specific item or colour, it’s more like take what you can while you can, before the tide comes and covers the beach.

How long do you spend on the beach each day?

That really depends on the tides and weather, and some days I may not have a chance to get to the beach at all. I spend about an hour and a half, until my back can take no more bending over. At this time of the year though, with stronger winds and storms, a lot more debris comes in, so it’s a great time for beach combing.

What’s the most unusual thing you’ve found?

So many odd things: a collection of false teeth and false fingernails, two toy toilets, and a plethora of characters and figures, animals and vehicles. Although to be completely honest the most unusual have been sex toys.

Whilst creating your work, how do you feel about how we humans are treating the planet?

I’ve always been concerned about ecology, and my work with plastic collected from just three small beaches serves as a reminder of the plight of the marine environment. The problem of plastic pollution of the seas is not just local – it’s global, and I’m saddened by the wastefulness of our consumer society. Plastic is useful for making things, but people are unaware that it is not an inert material; most plastics leach harmful chemicals into the atmosphere. I find myself in a paradoxical state, I love the fact that I can find this material for my artworks on the beach, but I hate the fact that it’s there.

Do you ever think about who discarded a particular piece, and what their story is?

I constantly bring myself back to the user of the items I find, and wonder about who they were and why they may have lost or thrown away the object now in my hands. I’ve made a whole series of works using this very notion, where the objects are displayed alongside a piece of narrative text, and a small potential history of how or why they ended up on the beach. For example: Part of a fishing line reel that was discarded during an adolescent mood; The casing of a sucking sweet that was sweetly sucked; Part of a pen given away free at a seaside carnival; A fragment of a crabbing set broken by bad tempered feet.

Do different times of year, or times of day, produce a certain type of debris?

Autumn and winter are the best times of year for finding objects on the beach, as the strong currents bring more debris in, as do the storms. The sand also gets churned up, so anything that was buried in it by a previous tide, may be brought back up to the surface. There are no particular patterns, but every beachcomber can tell you where the best places to look are on their particular beach.

How do you feel about the ocean?

A healthy oceanic environment is so crucial to life, not only does it provide millions with their main source of food, but it also directs weather. It’s so important to our daily lives whether we are on the coast or inland, but most are unware of that, and just see it as a place to go for pleasure. Living by the sea for most of my life I really do feel a deep connectedness it. The beach is my place of refuge, the place I go to think and take time away from the hustle of the everyday. The sea has no borders and there is a notion that when you walk along the shore and step into the water, that footstep brings you closer to other people on their own shores. In my childhood home I could hear and see the sea from my bedroom, and the sound of waves had a soporific effect that would ease me into sleep. That said, when asleep, and in my dreamscape there is a whole coastline that I explore, that is filled with caves, treasures, sanctuary and danger. It has seeped into my subconscious.

What’s your process? Do you collect lots of debris in one go and then make a piece? Or a small amount over time and then begin the artwork?

I just collect what I can. Then there is a process of cleaning and sorting in my studio – I sort by type and colour, although this is a particularly difficult for me as I’m colour blind. It’s a long and frustrating process when you can’t tell if the object in your hand is blue or purple, red or brown, grey or green. But I leave it down to my own perception and the anomalies end up in the artworks. That’s why in a blue piece you may find purple and green, in a yellow piece green and orange. The idea that I have at the time informs how I use the plastic, but artworks take a couple of months to make and become increasingly difficult as they progress. It’s like creating a jigsaw without an image and thousands of pieces to search through to find the one that fits. I don’t alter the materials in any way, there is no cutting, reshaping, or changing of colour. I want to stay truthful to the objects that I find, and use them with integrity.

What do you want your work to say?

I feel that my works have many levels of meaning. I am interested in the objects as 21st century archaeology, as representatives of our time in history and of the people who made, used and lost them. Like many historical archaeological finds, this debris provides the evidence of our culture. I’m also interested in the lost object as a subject, and how they may be imbued with the memory of the people who left or lost them. To viewers some of the objects and their associated relationships to them are lost in the depths of their own memories. These artworks sometimes help people to allow those memories to rise to the surface and be reminded of their own personal histories – so each piece can act as a key to things we ourselves have lost. The environmental subject is an obvious but important aspect of my work. We’re still in the times of oil dominance, and plastic is a product of that industry. Increasingly it’s becoming an environmental problem, not just in the sea but on land as well, and my works usually raise questions about our cultural and person consumption. Plastic may still be in the environment for thousands of years, after we are long gone.

For more information see stevemcpherson.co.uk or follow him on Instagram @mcphersonsteve