Use of coffee waste to produce biofuels

Kafsimo is a community-based project which focuses on recycling coffee waste into clean biofuel. The goal is to standardize this innovative model so as to be adapted to any geographical area and organic waste stream. People from vulnerable backgrounds receive adequate training to run the project, contributing to their employability.
In practice, the team of Kafsimo will be collecting the coffee waste from a number of local coffee shops and bars in Kilkis and Thessaloniki cities. The waste coffee will be transferred into the facilities of the team where it will be naturally dried out. Then, it will be transformed into clear biofuels in form of briquettes and/or pellets.
The project aims to be partially self-funded through the sale of biofuel and any income generated will help to support social housing for vulnerable groups on a long-term basis. It is part of a wider multicircular economy system that involves exchanging used coffee grounds from local cafés with “staramakia” (natural wheat straws) to replace plastic straws. In this way we can maximise the community participation and awareness on both the issues of organic waste over-production and the over-consumption of single use plastics.
Kafsimo cooperates directly with an increasing number of coffee shops and bars and creates a network in order to minimize the operations cost and the carbon footprint. Moreover, the Kafsimo project has chosen an environmentally friendly vehicle for the collection of the coffee waste.