MESA, Ariz., U.S. – Mesa Community College (MCC) Urban Horticulture and Sustainable Agriculture programs and McDonald’s are partnering in a new coffee grounds recycling initiative to help its gardens grow. MCC Urban Horticulture faculty pick up used coffee grounds weekly from the Southern & Longmore McDonald’s restaurant and add them to the school’s urban garden compost.
The initiative is part of McDonald’s “Good Neighbor Good Grounds” recycling program, designed to divert used coffee grounds from the waste stream by promoting the reuse of coffee grounds to add nutrients to soil or compost.
McDonald’s restaurants throughout Arizona are teaming up with schools and colleges statewide to recycle their used coffee grounds and help their gardens grow.
Mesa McDonald’s owner Geoff Coulston stated that Arizona restaurants participating in the coffee grounds recycling program expect to divert thousands of pounds of waste from going into the waste stream.
As a result of the new recycling partnership with MCC Urban Horticulture and Sustainable Agriculture programs, he estimates that 10,000 pounds of waste per year from his restaurant may be saved.
“The MCC Urban Horticulture and Sustainable Agriculture programs provide students with hands-on training in urban farming and sustainable agriculture,” said Peter Conden, director of the MCC Urban Horticulture and Sustainable Agriculture programs.
“We welcome this recycling partnership with McDonald’s and look forward to expanding sustainable efforts with other businesses as well.”
“Our McDonald’s restaurants serve a lot of coffee,” said Coulston. “The opportunity to partner with schools and colleges in our communities to reduce our coffee grounds waste is a win for everyone.
Concern for the environment is important to us as well as our customers. We practice responsible coffee sourcing. The majority of our certified coffee purchases are from Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms, including 100% of our espresso in the U.S.
Our restaurants work hard to reuse, reduce and recycle,” he continued. “We also currently recycle used cooking oil in nearly all of our restaurants.
Our napkins are made out of 100% recycled content and we are the first in the industry to have the “How2Recycle” label on many of our recyclable packages, bags and clear cups. We’ve also set a time-bound goal to achieve 100% of our packaging from certified or recycled sources by the year 2020.”
