London Stansted Airport is to become the first airport in world to convert its coffee waste to solid biofuels. From October 21, a groundbreaking partnership with bio-bean, the world’s largest recycler of coffee grounds, will see all 21 of the airport’s coffee shops, restaurants and bars collect all spent coffee grounds.
The grounds will be transported to bio-bean’s hi-tech processing facility near Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, where they will be converted into Coffee Logs, each made from the grounds of around 25 cups of coffee and used in domestic wood burners and multi-fuel stoves as a more sustainable and environmentally friendly alternative to conventional fuels.
Recycling coffee grounds this way saves 80% on CO2e emissions than if they were sent to landfill and saves 70% than sending them to an anaerobic digestion facility and mixed with food waste, as is currently the case.
To mark the start of the new scheme, London Stansted is giving away around 2,000 of the new Coffee Logs to staff and local residents in time for colder weather over the winter months. The airport will be working with local partners to organize distribution.
“With six million cups of coffee being sold at Stansted every year, it’s great to find a new, sustainable way of using the 150 tons of waste that it produces,” said Steve Griffiths, London Stansted’s chief operating officer.