Coffee grounds

Valencia, Spain

Type of waste: agricultural

Valencia is one of the biggest Spanish cities, it hosts local and foreign tourists alike. This has managed to make the vibrant city center a place where bars and coffee shops pop-up. Like many other European cities it's café culture shines and with it comes coffee waste.

WaysTUP!

As part of the European WaysTUP! project, the AIMPLAS Institute has developed a bio-based plastic film from used coffee grounds, collected by BIOBEAN from restaurants. The process involves extracting PHA (a type of biopolymer) from the waste, formulating it to be processable by extrusion, and finally transforming it into a film for flexible packaging.