Green Options

Researchers at the University of York have recently come up with a method of recycling that seems like it fell from the pages of a science fiction novel. They want to turn discarded television screens into components for biomedicine.

We’ve written here before about how to get composting and about how organic matter in landfills produces methane, a greenhouse gas that’s stronger than CO2. The average person in the U.S. drinks around 3 cups of coffee per day. Americans consume over 2.4 billion pounds of coffee per year. That leaves a lot of spent grounds that could be headed right for the trash bin.

Java City is doing its bit to make a difference with its Joe-to-Grow program. Folks can pick up spent coffee grounds to use as fertilizer for acid-loving plants. On top of recommending that you sprinkle them on your garden, the Java City folks say that used grounds make a great repellent for ants, slugs and snails. They also recommend drying out the grounds and then sticking them in the fridge or closet to absorb odors, just like baking soda!

So what are some other uses for spent coffee grounds?

Terracycle is most known for their reuse of plastic soda bottles as packaging for their Worm Poop gardening products. While these initial products are definitely to be commended, it’s their recent move into office and school products in conjunction with Office Max that stands to make an even more profound impact.

Many people spend a great deal of time working in offices, and to have a mainstream supplier actively promoting awareness about the value of using green office products will likely lead to many people that may not have previously found relevance in their lives to consider more deeply what they choose to purchase for their office, and perhaps other parts of their lives.

Why Office Max?

Why exactly did Terracycle, the scrappy company (literally, reusing scrap production waste in some products) decide to partner with the massive Office Max? Listen up green startups, this is important: They are able to go beyond their youthful  excitement about all things green, and hear from people with decades of experience what consumers are actually buying, where they want things to be greener, and where the most impact can be made. And, having a large, deeply ingrained distribution network, Office Max can also allow Terracycle to more confidently venture into making new products, with a sharply reduced time on the development cycle. This plus being able to produce larger numbers right away leads to  being able to keep their prices at an everyday level, so that a broad segment of the population can and will try them.

Review of  innovative green office products from Terracycle

So where does that lead Terracycle? It leads them to start with 7 new products, and have several more coming soon, including paper made from Mango leaves. More on that below. I had the pleasure of trying many of them out, and here’s what I found:

In nature, there is no waste. Or, perhaps a bit more accurately, "waste" from any source becomes the feed for another. Everything is a raw material for some other process or system. Sometimes the changes are minor, as with the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide in respiration, while at other times they are hugely transformative, such as the use of soil to grow into a structure like a tree.

[...]