It has been common practice for years now that we use hermetic seals to help preserve the quality of coffee, yet in doing so we are also contributing to more and more waste. With no quick and easy solutions to recycle soft plastics at home, we need to seek out opportunities ourselves to reduce our contribution to landfill, and work towards a more sustainable future. At Langdon Coffee Merchants, we are always interested in the innovative ways companies and individuals are recycling coffee packaging.
GrainPro and Ecotact were originally bought to life to reduce spoilage and food waste, for seeds and grains while in storage. Both have become industry standards, now being a rare occurrence to find specialty coffee shipped without one of the two, in an effort to preserve flavour and quality. As an acknowledgement of the potential waste they contribute, both Ecotact and GrainPro have independent partnerships with companies like Terracycle, to provide solutions where our local councils cannot. Terracycle’s vision is to “eliminate the idea of waste” by turning our linear economy into a circular one. This entails reducing the use of virgin materials, by encouraging the creation of recycled material packaging. This initiative is currently having positive impacts in 20 countries around the world in landfill reduction.
In the same regard, companies like Pact are making their contribution to the future of sustainability, by repurposing soft plastics into high quality, food-grade resins. These resins can then be remanufactured into packaging for water and soft drink bottles, bakery and protein trays, fresh fruit punnets and more.
For the coffee industry in particular, Pact helps by recycling LDPE material such as GrainPro, into high quality resins which can be made into builders’ film, silage wrap, dampcourse, garage bags and other sheet products, repurposing our coffee bag plastics into other required items in the industry.
Whilst these companies continue to invest in state-of-the-art facilities to wash, sort, process and recycle the plastics currently contributing to our landfill, niftier Melbourne-esque solutions have evolved to help fight the war on waste.
War on Waste Cartel use coffee sacks to create tote bags featuring the stunning designs our supply partners embed into hessian bags. Coffee sacks have also found their way into gardener's hands, with organisations utilising them for gardening purposes.
Over at Aora Creo, they upcycle plastic bags into tote bags and backpacks with colourful designs. They even offer an at home manual to help reuse and create at home.
We are always looking for new ways to repurpose our packaging and coffee in more sustainable ways. If you have a unique way of doing this and would like to share it with our team, contact us at info@langdoncoffee.com.au. We would love to hear about it!