Revive creates palm oil alternative from coffee grounds

by Startacus Admin

Revive was created to bring new life to coffee waste, collecting and recycling used coffee grounds to create a palm oil alternative...

We have written recently about startups doing their part to find ways to deal with waste so that it doesn’t end up in landfills or in the ocean. Whether it is offsetting your carbon footprint with Project Wren, using plastic as a building aggregate with Plastech Innovation, or breaking plastic down into reusable chemicals with BioCellection, startups are making big steps towards dealing with our ever-growing problems with waste. 

But while plastic is the thing everybody thinks of when they hear about dumping in landfills and oceans, but everything contributes to the problem. For example, what about the 500,000 tonnes of coffee grounds that are poured into landfills every year in the UK?

Glasgow-based startup Revive is adding to the startups aiming to change how we look at so-called ‘waste’, and instead put them to a new use. And they are starting with those coffee grounds...

By diverting coffee grounds from landfills across Scotland, Revive reduces carbon emissions and is able to produce natural chemicals from them, as well as soil amendment products that enrich soil to help certain plants grow.

Everyone, at this point, should have heard about how bad palm oil is for the environment, its production responsible for huge amounts of deforestation and destruction of animals’ homes. Revive has discovered that what they can make from coffee grounds is a potential replacement for palm oil. One that is more environmentally-friendly, can be produced locally, and is far more sustainable.

Oils extracted from coffee grounds can be used in all sorts of products, from pharmaceuticals to cosmetics, and Revive is working hard on developing the means to do this.

In April, Revive moved into the RBS Accelerator, and were not only selected to represent Scotland in the Chivas Venture competition, but made it through to the semi-final. Although they did not move past the semi-final, they did receive a $20,000 prize for getting that far. For any startup, a cash injection of any size can do wonders, and we hope that it just one of many to come. Revive’s potential is enormous, and perhaps the best thing about it is that it gives us an excuse to drink more coffee!


Images from the Revive Instagram page. 

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• #coffee
• #sustainability
• #palm oil
• #waste
• #environment
• #social impact

Published on: 19th August 2019