Was it a coffee lover or hater who came up with this innovative idea? What if your morning coffee could help build the next generation of eco-friendly homes? That’s exactly what researchers in Australia are doing: turning leftover coffee grounds into bricks. These bricks from recycled coffee grounds aren’t just a quirky experiment. They’re strong, sustainable, and could seriously cut down on construction emissions and costs. Here’s how your daily brew is becoming the foundation for greener buildings.
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At Swinburne University of Technology, researchers found a creative way to cut both construction emissions and material costs by making bricks from recycled coffee grounds. Instead of letting all that coffee waste go to landfills, they partnered with local coffee shops to collect spent grounds straight from espresso machines. Then, by blending the coffee waste with natural clay and an alkali activator, they developed a recipe for low-emission bricks that are not only more sustainable but also faster and cheaper to produce than traditional clay ones.
Coffee is the world’s second most popular beverage, beaten only by tea. As such, there are approximately two and a quarter billion cups of coffee consumed daily. If you average out the espressos, cappuccinos, and americanos, then each cup brews using roughly eleven grams of freshly ground coffee. However, that leads to over nine million tonnes of coffee bean grounds. In turn, this generates an estimated eighteen million tonnes of damp, burnt byproduct dumped into landfills every single year. So, there is an abundance of supply, but how can coffee grounds be more efficient than traditional clay bricks?
This innovative method of using spent coffee grounds drastically reduces the energy needed to mold bricks. Even low-quality traditional clay bricks must be baked in a kiln at over 900 degrees Celsius. These new coffee bricks only need to be cooked at 200 degrees Celsius. That’s an 80 percent reduction in energy usage, meaning that these bricks are significantly more efficient for both the environment and manufacturing costs.
The lead scientist, Dr. Wong, claimed,