Bean-flavoured water manufacturer Starbucks is not just comfortable with being a coffee shop anoymore. No, no. Starbucks now wants to get into your home with a plan to turn coffee grinds and old baked goods into laundry detergent and plastic.
Yes, you read that right. The coffee you pay more than you should for everyday and those loveable pastries that stare you down while you’re in line is somehow going to combine into a killer wave of Cold Power. According to the NY Daily News, the project is being led by scientists at the City University of Hong Kong and is being tested at a biorefinery where the stale baked goods are blended with a mixture of fungi.
“[The fungi] help break down the carbohydrates into simple sugars. The blend is then fermented in a vat where bacteria transform the sugars into succinic acid, a key material that’s used to produce everything from laundry detergent, plastic, to medicine.”
It’s sort of gross (but good!) to think that Starbucks coffee grinds can be made into household goods, no? [NY Daily News via Seattle PI, Image Credit: Flickr/Schtumple]