The two worldwide organizations are teaming up to create car parts from coffee bean waste that will make environmentally friendly products.
Coffee chaff, which is the dried skin of the bean and naturally comes off during the roasting process, will be converted into a durable material to reinforce certain car parts, Ford announced on Wednesday.
“McDonald’s commitment to innovation was impressive to us and matched our own forward-thinking vision and action for sustainability,” Ford’s senior technical leader of its sustainability and emerging materials research team Debbie Mielewski said in a statement. “This has been a priority for Ford for over 20 years, and this is an example of jump starting the closed-loop economy, where different industries work together and exchange materials that otherwise would be side or waste products.”
The innovation came when the companies discovered the chaff could be transformed into a durable material after it’s heated to high temperatures in a low oxygen atmosphere. The chaff is then mixed with plastic and other additives where it’s morphed into pellets that are molded into specific parts.
The chaff composite is 20% lighter than normal parts and requires 25% less energy during the molding process.
Each year, McDonald’s discards millions of pounds of coffee chaff, that will now be reused.
“Like McDonald’s, Ford is committed to minimizing waste and we’re always looking for innovative ways to further that goal,” senior director of global sustainability Ian Olson said in a statement. “By finding a way to use coffee chaff as a resource, we are elevating how companies together can increase participation in the closed-loop economy.”
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