Tag: #willitcompost

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Goodbye to the take-away cup

Back in April 2017 I was given a “completely compostable” disposable cup in order to try some batch brew. But how “compostable” is “completely compostable” really? It needed to be tested! And so, once it was empty, the cup was placed into a worm composting bin and left to see how long it took to compost.

Each week I took a photograph of the cup to see how it was composting, the results of which were made into the film below. How long did it take? You can watch the film or scroll past to find out more:

Did it compost?

110 weeks! That is more than two years in the worm bin. Is that how long you thought it would take? When things are marked “compostable”, even when they are marked with a regulatory compostable mark like EN13432 or ASTM6400, this usually means the item is compostable only in an industrial setting. Industrial composting facilities are kept at 58C, very far from the conditions found in a London based worm bin (more details here) or indeed from most people’s idea of a compost bin.

The OK Vincotte label is for items that are supposed to be genuinely “home” compostable. Will this bag from Amoret coffee compost in the worm bin? It is in there now but as we are in winter, the worms have slowed down to such an extent that it would not be fair to start a new #willitcompost just yet.

What about defining labels for a genuine “home” composting environment? The problem here is that a worm composting bin in London will be very different from a more conventional compost heap in a tropical country. How can you define one set of conditions that are universally applicable? One label that tries is “OK Vincotte” but it seems quite rare and indeed I have only seen this once ‘in the wild’: on bags of Amoret roasted coffee (see picture). Have you spotted them anywhere else?

The conclusion from all this? We all need to think about how we each can live more simply and sustainably. Perhaps a re-usable cup will be part of the way that you do this. (Some of them are reviewed by Brian’s coffeespot linked here). Or maybe you’ll opt to drink your coffee to-stay. Whatever else it involves though, it can’t be by putting each “compostable” take-away coffee cup we consume in a worm composting bin in London or imagining that they will somehow compost in a landfill!

Do let me know what you are doing to address the issues of your own coffee waste either in the comments below, on Twitter or over on Facebook. I look forward to continuing the discussion there.

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Home experiments Observations slow Sustainability/environmental Tea

Tales from the worm bin

the cup before the worm bin
How it all began.
“Completely compostable”
But how compostable is it?

It is hard to believe but it was one year ago this week that the composting experiment that became #willitcompost started. The idea was to test just how “compostable” a coffee cup described as “completely compostable” really was. The problem is that “compostable” has a legal definition but it is not one that you or I may immediately recognise. Legally for a take-away coffee cup to be described as compostable it has to completely disappear within 6 months in an industrial composting facility. Industrial composting is quite different from home composting. In the former, the temperature is kept at (58±2)ºC while in my composting worm bin, it can get very cold indeed.

As has been written about elsewhere, in the absence of better industrial composting facilities, there is very little virtue involved by swapping a disposable cup for a compostable one, to combat the problem of waste it would be far better to remember your re-usable. However, what if you had a composting bin at home? How long would it take the cup to compost? And even, would it compost?

So every week for the past 52 weeks, I have posted a photo of the cup, composting away, in the worm bin. It seems clear that although it will eventually compost, more than 52 weeks is a long time to wait and not practical if you are drinking multiple take-away coffees.

willitcompost
51 weeks later, the lining and part of the rim of the cup are still in the worm bin. Clearly the worms have better things to eat.

In the meanwhile, other questions have been raised. What about other coffee packaging such as the bags for roasted coffee beans? What about the compostable “glasses”? Can anything be done to speed up the composting of the cup?

Last month, the opportunity came to start a new experiment testing these questions. A compostable coffee roasting bag from Amoret Coffee (which was reviewed on Bean Thinking here) was placed in the second shelf of the worm bin together with a cup, a compostable “glass” and a section of food packaging. The cup and the ‘glass’ were cut in half before being placed in the worm bin. One half of each was left as it was but the other half was soaked in (initially boiling) water for 12 hours. The idea of this was that part of the problem that has slowed the composting of the original cup was the lining that is designed to hold hot liquids without leaking. If we could somehow weaken that lining before placing it in the worm bin, perhaps the composting process would be accelerated?

talesfromthewormbin
A roasted coffee bag, a cup (split in two, see main text), a compostable glass and some food packaging, but will they compost?

Starting in late March provides the best chance of a quick composting process due to a particular aspect of worm behaviour. Although the composting worms will continue to eat the waste put into the composting bin throughout the winter, they do slow down quite a lot. If you have a worm bin, you may notice that the amount of waste that you can put into the bin decreases during the winter months. On the other hand, as the weather improves, the worms seem to eat everything very quickly so, to provide the best conditions for composting, the weather has to be reliably warm (or at least, not freezing).

Rather than once a week, updates will be approximately once per month both on social media and in the Bean Thinking newsletter. So keep your eyes on #talesfromthewormbin on twitter or subscribe to the newsletter. Do we really take our environmental responsibility seriously by using compostable packaging or, ultimately, is a more radical approach to waste, single use packaging and consumerism necessary?

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General Home experiments Observations Science history slow Sustainability/environmental Tea

Coffee and the world

Welcome to the first post of 2018, Happy New Year! But before embracing 2018, perhaps let’s take a moment to remember those things that we discovered in 2017 that connect your coffee cup (or brewing device) with the physics of what occurs in the wider universe. Here are some of the highlights for me this year, if you want to share your highlight, please comment in the section below.

latte art, flat white art
A properly made latte. But what if you add hot espresso to the milk instead of the other way around?

1) Latte layering

In mid-December a study was published in Nature Communications that explored the complex, but elegant, physics involved in making lattes (ok, not quite by the technique that you would hopefully find in your neighbourhood café but keep with this…). When a hot, low density, liquid (espresso) was poured into a hot higher density liquid (milk) contained within a cold mug, the competition between the density gradients of the liquid (vertical) and the temperature gradient from the cup wall to the liquids (horizontal) produced multiple layers of varying coffee/milk concentration in the cup. Too late for a 2017 Daily Grind article, this looks to be too good an experiment to pass by, hopefully it will appear on the Daily Grind in early 2018.

 

science in a V60
Could this V60 mystery now be solved?

2) Bouncing drops

November 2017 saw research published about what happens when a cold droplet falls onto a hot liquid (think milk and coffee). The temperature difference causes currents to be established within the droplet (and in the main liquid) that in turn create air flows between the droplet and the liquid bath that prevent the droplet from merging with the bath. The research can explain why it is that you can sometimes see raindrops staying as spheres of water on the top of puddles. It may also explain a puzzling phenomenon that I have seen while brewing coffee in a V60.

 

Vortex rings get everywhere.

3) Vortex rings in coffee

June 2017 and it is again about adding milk to coffee (why do I drink coffee black?). When one liquid (such as milk) is dripped into another (such as coffee), it is very likely that you will observe the milk to form “vortex rings”. These rings are related to smoke rings and have, in the past, been proposed as an atomic model. This year however it was suggested that these vortex rings could form as a type of magnetic nanostructure. Mathematically impressive, beautiful, perhaps quite useful and mathematically similar to something you can find in your coffee.

 

bloom on a v60
How do craters form?

4) Crater shapes

April 2017. What happens while brewing a pour over? As you drip water onto a granular bed (or, in coffee terms, ground coffee in a V60 filter), each drop will create a crater. The size and shape of the crater will depend on the density of the granular bed (espresso puck or loose grounds in a filter) and the velocity of the falling drop. Fast frame photography revealed how the shape of the crater changed with time for different scenarios.

 

Coffee bag genuinely home compostable
How it started.
The Roasting House bag before it went into the worm composter.

5) A home experiment

Perhaps not quite in the theme of the other four stories but this is an experiment that you can do at home. Some have proposed compostable coffee cups as a more environmentally conscious alternative to ordinary, disposable, coffee cups. But how “compostable” are compostable cups and compostable packaging? Between May and September 2017, #howlongtocompost looked at how long it took the Natureflex packaging (used by the coffee roasting company Roasting House for their ground coffee) to compost in a worm composting bin. This one worked quite well. Within 17 weeks, it had been eaten by the worms. In comparison, the “completely compostable” take away coffee cup is still in the worm bin (although considerably degraded) 37 weeks after the start of the experiment. If you are interested, you can follow #willitcompost on twitter. Will it finally compost? I’ll leave you to place your bets but you may decide that a link to Brian’s coffee spot guide to re-usable cups will be helpful.

 

What will 2018 bring? Certainly there will be more composting experiments as I have a coffee bean bag from Amoret coffee, 3 different compostable cups and a compostable “glass” to try with the worms. But in terms of the science? We’ll have to wait. Meanwhile, if you have a coffee-science highlight from 2017, please do share it either here in the comments section, on Twitter or on Facebook. Happy New Year to you all.