Waste coffee grounds will be used to help power some of London’s buses. According to the BBC, a biofuel created by blending oil extracted from coffee waste with diesel is to be added to the public transport fuel supply. Technology firm bio-bean says it has produced enough coffee (about 2.55 million cups) oil to power one bus for a year.
Biofuel made from waste products such as cooking oil and tallow from meat processing is already used in many of the capital’s 9,500 buses but this is the first time coffee has been involved. Londoners create 200,000 tons of coffee waste a year, according to bio-bean. The company collects used grounds from coffee shops and factories and extracts oil from it. This is then processed into a biofuel that buses can use without any modifications.