Merlo Coffee has become the first coffee business in Queensland to take part in BioPak’s compostable cup service.
Customers at Merlo owned cafés will be served takeaway coffee in BioPak single wall cups made from plants, rather than crude oil. The used cups can be disposed of in special composting bins at each Merlo store, along with food scraps, packaging and coffee grounds.
Company founder Dean Merlo says ditching plastic-coated cups and moving to a composting system would cut Merlo’s carbon emissions by 25 per cent, keep 9.4 tonnes of plastic out of landfill, and create 164 tonnes of compost each year.
“In our 15 Merlo cafés across Queensland, we go through millions of takeaway cups every year. If you lined them up, they’d stretch from Brisbane to Byron Bay and back again,” Dean says.
“Research shows three-quarters of Australians drink at least one cup of coffee daily but an estimated one billion disposable cups end up in landfill each year, where they take up to 50 years to breakdown.”
Dean urged coffee lovers to join the compostable campaign.
“Thanks to companies like BioPak making eco-friendly materials, Merlo customers can keep their caffeine habit and do something good for the earth by dropping their cup in our collection bins,” he says. “In just eight weeks, your coffee cup becomes healthy worm food.”
The waste will be transported to a facility at Swanbank, Queensland, near Ipswich, where recycling and revegetation company NuGrow will turn it into organic compost.
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BioPak CEO Gary Smith says Merlo customers can now be part of the solution to the national waste crisis.
“Along with a mountain of coffee cups, Australians dump more than eight-million tonnes of food and organic waste that could be composted,” Gary says.
“Decomposing food releases methane, which is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide, causing enormous damage to our environment.
“We are thrilled that Merlo is leading the way in Queensland by composting its cups and organic waste. I’m sure its coffee-loving customers will seize the chance to be part of this change.”
Merlo also aims to roll out compostable cups in the more than 1600 cafés it supplies with coffee beans.
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