Turn waste into gold! Tea reform has successfully allowed tea and coffee grounds to replace some plastic raw materials

Taiwan is a big consumer of tea and coffee, with more than 300,000 tons of tea grounds and 200,000 tons of coffee grounds each year. In the past, they could only be composted and had to pay a lot of transportation costs. The tea and beverage crop improvement field team of the Ministry of Agriculture can replace up to 15% of plastics through processing. They also have the aroma of tea and coffee. After being made into slippers, the shoe cabinet no longer smells of foot odor but instead smells super refined.

With the rise of environmental awareness, more and more plastic products hope to be replaced by environmentally friendly materials. Tea reform field researcher Cai Xianzong's team has developed "tea and coffee remaining material powder processing technology" to create an integrated method of raw material preparation with customizable specifications. Coffee grounds and tea grounds can be ground into powder, and the raw material particle size, moisture content, color, and functional ingredients can be customized according to the final downstream product. The product can replace 5% to 15% of plastic raw materials, and has a fresh tea or coffee aroma.

Cai Xianzong pointed out that the cost of plastic raw materials is about 50 yuan per kilogram, and the raw material pellets made of tea and coffee grounds are about 100 yuan per kilogram. Although the cost is higher, they can be mixed with plastic raw materials to create products. In addition to being more environmentally friendly, they also get rid of the plastic smell of the end products in the past, and also make tea and coffee grounds that can only be treated as compost in the past disappear. Once it becomes a material that can be used in many ways, such as making disposable tableware, 3D printing filaments, or being used as slippers, etc., as long as the slippers at home are replaced with slippers made of this material, the shoe cabinet will be filled with natural tea fragrance. China is also currently developing technology related to converting tea and coffee grounds into plastic replacement, but it has not yet succeeded. my country has taken the lead.

Relevant patented technologies have been transferred to manufacturers. Among them, the "eco-friendly tea arch slippers" cooperated with the domestic manufacturer Taisong Enterprise won this year's German Red Dot Design Award and the German iF Design Award. Li Xuanming, manager of the development department of Taisong Enterprise, said that green recycling products must not only be environmentally friendly, but also practical and affordable for the public to be truly effective. It is sustainable. After the related products were launched in May this year, 20,000 pairs have been sold, creating an output value of more than 5 million yuan. Pancai's company has also transferred this technology to produce filaments for 3D printing. He pointed out that after using this raw material, there will be no plastic smell and it will not affect degradation. In the future, the material will also be used in the interior of electric vehicles.

Su Zongzhen, director of the tea reform center, said that the technology was transferred through a non-exclusive licensing method because he hopes to promote the domestic tea industry, so the tea residues and other waste residues from domestic tea are expected to be used. The authorization period is three years, and the authorization fee is 100,000 yuan.