Ford is turning McDonald's coffee waste into headlights
Ford is recently including coffee chaff — coffee bean skin that comes off during the roasting process — into the plastic headlights housing (大灯外壳) used in some cars. It has asked McDonald's, which doesn't roast its own coffee, to connect it with suppliers.
In recent years, as consumers become more concerned about plastic pollution and carbon emissions, companies have made sweeping commitments to reduce their impacts on the environment. They've also been developing new, sustainable materials to build consumer products.
Traditionally, Ford uses plastic and talc (滑石粉) to make its headlights housing. The coffee version is more sustainable because it's lighter and doesn't use the talc which, as a mineral, isn't renewable. Coffee chaff, on the other hand, is widely available, and much of it goes to waste. Eventually, Ford hopes to use the material for more parts.
Ford decided to work with coffee chaff a few years ago. But it's been experimenting with organic materials for over a decade. The auto company has been using soy-based foam (泡沫) in its cushions since 2011. It also uses waste from wheat, coconut, tomato and other plants in its cars in order to help meet some of its sustainability goals, which include using more renewable materials. Once the Ford team figured out how coffee chaff could be used to build car parts, it reached out to McDonald's because of the restaurant chain's scale and its sustainability goals. Like Ford, McDonald's also wants to bring renewable and recycled materials into its products. The partnership between Ford and McDonald's is an example of how brands with different projects can work together.
"We've conventionally thought of cooperation as within the food industry," said Lan Olson, senior director of Global Sustainability at McDonald's. "The Ford partnership can help McDonald's see what kind of larger impacts are possible, when it works with a company in another field. This is just scratching the surface of trying to understand what's possible," Olson said.
