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This person is turning coffee grounds into delicious mushrooms

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This person is turning coffee grounds into delicious mushrooms

From waste to taste

Naman Bajaj
Sep 1, 2023
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This person is turning coffee grounds into delicious mushrooms

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Today’s eco snapshot👇🏽

  • Sustainable farming: Mushrooms from coffee waste

  • Startup of the week: The Udder Way

  • 5 brands that sustainably stand out

  • Some good news from around the world

  • 3 ways I can help you on your sustainability journey


🍄 How mushrooms grown from coffee waste are changing the game

Nam Mushroom is an urban farming project founded in 2018 by Natan Jacquemin, which cultivates edible fungus using coffee waste as an ideal breeding environment.

It receives 100 kilograms of coffee waste daily from Delta Cafés, Portugal's largest coffee distributor.

The mushrooms are sold to partner restaurants within 15 kilometers of Natan's farm.

How coffee waste is converted into mushrooms

Natan aims to become a social entrepreneur and an urban farmer, positively impacting the environment and society while earning an income.

To close the circle, Natan recycles the mushroom by-products and offers them to the Municipality of Lisbon, which uses them as fertilizer for gardens inside the city.

Nam Mushroom is also committed to hiring differently-abled people to help them integrate better into society.

Natan plans to expand his company over the next year and replicate the business model in other cities in Lisbon and abroad.

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✨ Startup of the week

Moo-ving away…A few years ago, Ed Crick owned a couple of cafes that heavily relied on milk as a primary ingredient. They received their milk supply in 2-liter bottles and were using around 30,000 bottles per year. Unfortunately, all of the bottles were thrown away after use, with only some of them being recycled. The majority of them ended up in landfills or oceans.

Reusable milk kegs…Frustrated by the amount of waste, Ed decided to take action. That's how The Udder Way was born in 2021. The company has built returnable and reusable kegs that can hold 18 liters of milk.

  • They hold the same amount of milk as a traditional milk crate holds in nine two-liter bottles.

  • A dispenser can be connected to the kegged milk and baristas can access it through a tap, just like pouring a beer.

  • Even grocers can install a keg system for customers to come in with their own refillable milk bottles.

Top Right- The reusable keg; Bottom right- how the reusable keg is directly connected to a milk dispenser in cafes; Left- the dispenser at work in a cafe

Milking the benefits…A keg lasts for at least 800 washes or eight years and can save approximately 7-10k milk bottles per year in a cafe. By the end of 2023, the goal is to save 5 million bottles.


✅ Brands that sustainably stand out

🇨🇦 Flashfood- This app helps you save money while fighting food waste

🇳🇱 Iron Roots- Plastic-free sportswear brand

🇮🇳 Ashaya | WITHOUT™- Making sunglasses from packets of chips that cannot be recycled

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 ENOUGH- Creating a sustainable protein to feed the world

🇺🇸 Tangible- Bringing down the emissions of the real estate sector

Get access to 100+ sustainable brands like these for $50/year by becoming a paid subscriber. Not sure if you should commit? Well, it comes with a free 7-day trial


😹 Some Good News

  • Oil be darned- Ecuadorians vote to halt oil drilling in biodiverse Amazonian national park

  • Blowin in the wind- Wind-powered shipping is back as a quiet revolution sweeps the seas

  • Law and flaw- Growing number of countries consider making ecocide a crime


🌎 3 ways I can help you

  • If you would like to chat about anything related to sustainability and climate change, you can book a free 20-minute call

  • Do you want to be featured in this newsletter and on LinkedIn, where I write an impactful story everyday? Submit your story

  • If you’re a planet-friendly brand, I can help you with your blogs, newsletters, case studies, and whitepapers. Here’s some of my recent work

Questions? Send them by replying to this email 📩


It’s time for the third siesta of the afternoon- Dash

Click that 💚 if this added some value to you.

Have a great weekend and see you next week😊

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Correct answer- Vietnam
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This person is turning coffee grounds into delicious mushrooms

www.notmyproblem.earth
Melanie Newfield
Writes The Turnstone
Sep 1Liked by Naman Bajaj

Coffee grounds are so useful. For two years I took around 10 kg per week and put them onto my garden and it transformed it.

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