How your morning coffee could help save the planet

The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) is turning used coffee grounds into a material that can be added to concrete to make it stronger and more sustainable.

Video transcript

This is how your morning coffee could help the planet.

The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology is turning used coffee grounds into a material that can be added to concrete to make it stronger and more sustainable.

Currently, concrete is a major producer of greenhouse gases and is responsible for around 8% of the world's emissions.

Roughly 50 billion tonnes of sand and gravel are dug up each year, mostly for use in concrete.

However, its extraction is often environmentally destructive, and the nations say it is an increasingly short supply.

To help this issue, researchers at RMIT are heating coffee waste to 350 C in an oxygen free chamber to create a substance called biochar.

This biochar can replace up to 15% of the sand used in concrete and make it 30% stronger, lead researcher Rajiv Roy Chand claims.

The extra strength means that up to 10% less cement is needed, he said.

This ticks all the boxes you preserve carbon and your significantly higher strength.

According to Roy Chand, Australia produces around 75,000 tonnes of waste coffee grounds a year, and biochar made from them could replace up to 675,000 tonnes of sand in concrete food waste accounts for about 3% of Australia's emissions and most could eventually be made into biochar, Roy Chan said.

We anticipate that about 60 to 70% of organic waste we can divert from landfill into concrete applications.

What do you think?