Our
thinking

(Bio)yule logs

24 February, 2020

After your Christmas dinner is eaten and the leftovers have been repurposed, throw another log on the fire, and don’t feel guilty about it. If you’re using bio logs, that is.

In the UK, we drink 95 million cups of coffee every day. That’s a lot of ground up coffee beans going to landfill (half a million tonnes for domestic fires and wood-burning stoves. But in a wonderful example of the principles of the circular economy in action, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Bio Bean collects coffee grounds from restaurants and coffee shops around the country and turns the coffee grounds into logs and pellets. These logs burn 20% hotter and 20% longer than dry wood, and reduce emissions by up to 80% compared to the impact of sending them to landfill. It’s a small example, taken in isolation, but it’s the sort of innovation that we are going to need (and increasingly expect) over the next decade.

And if logs from coffee beans don’t get you excited, check out the multiple other ways in which Bio Bean is using coffee grounds – sunglasses made from coffee grounds, anyone?