4 Companies That Can Help You Reduce Your Coffee Waste

More than half of us wake up in the morning and make a run for our morning coffee. But what happens to all of the waste from our morning addiction? Many of us depend on the coffee shop, say Starbucks of Peet’s coffee to help us be sustainable, but often that trust is misplaced.

At the end of the day, waste from coffee beans and from our cups and packaging ends up in the landfills, and continues to pollute our environment. But we know that conflicts with many newer consumers, like Gen Z, which has a stronger inclination toward sustainable purchases.

Coffee waste doesn’t just vanish when tossed away. The waste generated during coffee production—including coffee husk, pulp, and spent coffee grounds—is substantial. It includes a variety of by-products created during the journey from green beans to your morning brew. Most of the time these end up in landfills, where we don’t have space, contributing to environmental issues. Even worse, some plastics are burned, exposing our lungs to harmful chemicals. Often overlooked, these materials are actually a valuable resource with great potential for innovative reuse.

The second problem are the cups themselves. I personally love it when a cafe has a beautifully crafted ceramic cup I can use, but sadly most of us use disposable cups. Globally, over 500 billion disposable cups are consumed annually, of which between 250-300 billion are plastic-lined paper cups, which mostly end up in landfills or litter. A mere 0.25% of these cups are estimated to be recycled, with the vast majority ending up in landfills or being improperly disposed of. Global disposable paper cup CO2 emissions are estimated to reach 7.5 Mt CO2eq, which is comparable to the annual emissions of approximately 1.5 million EU inhabitants.

Three companies are trying to address both of these waste issues so you can breath easy during your morning cup.

HuskeeCup

The HuskeeCup is a modular, reusable cup for the home, cafe, or takeaway that repurposes waste coffee husk, a by-product from the production of coffee.

Huskee has its origins in the coffee growing regions of Yunnan, China. They use 50% coffee husk and mix it in with a plastic called polypropylene. Note they do not recommend multiple uses in a microwave.

What we love is that they offer a cup exchange program, HuskeeSwap, an end-of-life recycling program, HuskeeLoop. They have dozens of cafes throughout the U.S. where you can exchange your cup. You can buy your first HuskeeCup online.

Circular&Co.

Circular&Co. is focused on creatively making packaging from all sorts of waste. What I love about them are the bright colors you can choose from.

Their Bubblegum Cup is made with an outer layer of 97% post-consumer chewing gum, while our Fabric Cup includes 50% recycled textile and denim waste. Their Coffee Cup uses 40% recycled coffee waste, the Trainer Cup contains 30% recycled footwear, and our Marine Cup features 49% recycled marine plastic. The original Circular Cup is made from 40% recycled single-use paper cups, and the Stainless Steel Cups use 90% recycled stainless steel in both the inner and outer layers - metal is one of the most recycled materials.

They offer a program to return your cup to them for a discount on your next purchase, and to be recycled the right way. If your Circular&Co. Cup does get damaged, you’re covered by their guarantee for two years from the date of your purchase.

Kreis Cup

Meet the Kreis Cup, a coffee cup that’s sustainable, durable, and designed to enhance your coffee drinking experience! Appropriately, Kreis means circular in German.

Available in cup and travel-mug styles, the Kreis Cup is a reusable cup made from used coffee grounds and plant-based materials, free of petroleum-based plastics.

Made from spent coffee grounds that have been dried, treated, and are then suspended in a natural, plant-based polymer. This means when it heats up you get even more of that addictive scent of roasted beans.

Their sustainable, reusable, and compostable coffee cups are made from coffee waste and a bio-resin composed of organic materials, completely free of petroleum-based plastics. Even though they are biodegradable you can also put them in the dishwasher. You can find them in a number of cafes throughout the world.

KaffeeForm

Founder, Julian Lechner not surprisingly came up with Kaffeeform while drinking his third espresso, and then proceeded to create his company as his research thesis. Like others he had to overcome the challenge of coffee grounds getting moldy - something coffee drinkers definitely don’t want - and a challenge I have had with reusing my own coffee grounds in my garden.

What’s cool is they collect the coffee grounds from local partners and selected cafes in Berlin with the help of a bicycle collective. Weducer Cups Essential are made from plant-based polymers and recycled wood fibers. Their double-walled Weducer Cups (250ml / 350ml) additionally contain recycled coffee grounds.

As with most of these cups, they are not compostable. Compostable according to EU standards and definition means that it decomposes by 90% within six months in a compost environment. Their cups are free from melamine resin, BPA, formaldehyde, and other plasticizers.

What we appreciate is that they keep the sourcing the coffee grounds as locally as possible in Berlin and avoid long transport routes.