There seems to be an ever growing amount of uses for used coffee grounds such as coffee cups, fuel, compost, but now they are being used to pave roads.

Researchers at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, have discovered it is possible to create the foundation for road-building with used coffee grounds as one of the raw materials. A researcher for the University commented that the nature of the coffee grounds being “insoluble” makes it a very useful material for road-building. Coffee grounds are dried out in an oven then mixed with another waste product called “slag”, a by-product from steel manufacturing, the two materials are then bound together with an alkaline solution and compressed into blocks.

This study was taken to evaluate whether the combination of an organic waste product and an industrial waste product could create “subgrade” construction material. The researchers concluded that the findings show it is possible to “transform the construction industry” with the use of waste by-products in future road-building. This innovation would reduce the carbon footprint by a huge amount and it is very sustainable as well. It appears that used coffee grounds aren’t as wasteful as we once thought and it is great to see these new developments being made, may the road to good coffee continue!