Coffee
When brewing coffee, less than one percent of the beans end up in the liquid, mean while the rest ends up to waste. Coffee consumption worldwide produces 6-8 million tons of waste per year. In Finland, coffee accounts for 13% of the total amount of food waste generated. However, used coffee grounds can have many other uses. They can be used, for example, for soil improvement, as a raw material for bioenergy or oil for the cosmetics industry.
Mash
Mash is produced as a side stream in the manufacturing process of beer and distilled spirits. 40 million tons of mash is produced every year during beer production. Mash is used a lot, especially as animal feed and bioenergy, but it has also been used in the production of paper and cardboard and as a raw material for grain products.
Lignin and sawdust
The wood industry produces a significant amount of side streams at different stages of the manufacturing processes. Side streams include sawdust and wood chips. Various wood-based products such as plywood and chipboard have been processed from these for a long time. However, it is problematic, for example, the resin adhesives used in gluing veneers, which are toxic and cause pollution.
Lignin, on the other hand, is a tree-specific binder that holds the plant cell together. Most of the lignin produced is currently burned for energy. By using lignin as a binder in wood products, an emission-free and completely natural product can be created.
Hair
Hair and fur waste is produced in hundreds of tons per year. Almost all hair and fur go to incinerated in the mixed waste, because they do not land well. However, human and animal hair have many useful properties. For example, they can absorb a significant amount of oil and have been used to cleanup oil spills. In the construction field human hair can be used to reinforce concrete, because it has the same tensile strength as copper wire. Hair has also a lot of keratin and nitrogen which could be used in fertilizing plants.
Orange peel
In Finland 75 kilos of biowaste is generated per year per inhabitant. Even more waste would be generated if all bio-waste was sorted correctly and did not end up in, for example, mixed waste. Bio-waste can be used, for example, as a raw material for biofuels, but a large part is decomposed or made into mulch. However, different types of biowaste can be collected to refine into even higher value products.
Mycelium
Mycelium is an underground part of fungi, through which water and nutrients are transported. You can grow mycelium yourself by providing it with a favorable growth medium through which the fungus can grow. In the future, it will also be possible to grow food from mushroom mycelium, and the mycelium can be fed with extracts made from side streams. Fungal mycelia growing can be one way to maintain global food security.