GOOD

Ford will cut down plastic use by recycling McDonald's coffee into car parts

Heidi Lux
12.12.19

McDonalds sells a lot of coffee. Over a billion cups a year, to be exact. All that coffee leads to a lot of productive mornings, but it also leads to a lot of waste. Each year, millions of pounds of coffee chaff (the skin of the coffee beans that comes off during roasting) ends up getting turned into mulch. Some coffee chaff just gets burned, leading to an increase in CO2.

Now, that chaff is going to get turned into car parts. Ford is incorporating coffee chaff from McDonalds coffee into the headlamps of some cars. Ford has been using plastic and talc to make its headlamps, but this new process will reduce the reliance on talc, a non-renewable mineral. The chaff is heated to high temperatures under low oxygen and mixed with plastic and other additives. The bioplastic can then be formed into shapes.

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Debbie Miewelski, senior technical leader of materials sustainability for Ford, describes it as a "win-win-win-win-win-win." The process reduces food waste, turning it into a useful, greener product. The parts are 20% lighter than the old headlamps, yet they're stronger. They also require 25% less energy during the heating and molding process.

"[Chaff] would be compostable, but in this case, we're making a high-end composite with it," Miewelski told Fast Company. "You're making a higher-end material rather than putting it back into the ground, or worst-case, creating CO2 by burning it."

The Ford x McDonald's coffee waste headlamps are an example of the circular economy. Miewelski wants to see more companies repurpose the waste from other companies in this sustainable way. "My hope is that many parts on vehicles, and many home goods, can utilize some of these materials. I'm convinced that it can happen," Miewelski told Fast Company. "We need to get people in the mindset, this is not waste, these are valuable products . . . the whole circular economy is something we should have been working on for the last 30 or 50 years, but now we have to catch up.

RELATED: 6 attractive alternatives to everyday products that are better for the environment

This bioplastic will be first used in the Lincoln Continental sedan in 2020. Ford hopes to use the material in more cars and more parts. The company has a goal to use only recycled and renewable plastics in its cars. The transportation sector is currently responsible for over 25% of all carbon emissions, so the greener we can make our vehicles, the better.

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Innovators

The world is rallying around Tori, the Target employee Tweet-shamed by an irate cheapskate

via David Leavitt / Twitter

Anyone who has ever worked in retail knows that the worst thing about the job, right after the pay, are the unreasonable cheapskates who "want to talk to your manager" to get some money off an item.

They think that throwing a tantrum will save them a few bucks and don't care if they completely embarrass themselves in the process. Sometimes that involves belittling the poor employee who's just trying to get through their day with an ounce of dignity.

Twitter is rallying around a gal named Tori who works at a Target in Massachusetts after she was tweet-shamed by irate chapekate, journalist, and Twitter troll, David Leavitt.

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Business

The cost of having a baby even with insurance equals average the monthly income of a woman

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Childbirth is the number one reason American women visit the hospital, and it ain't cheap. In fact, it's getting more and more expensive. A new study published in Health Affairs found that the cost of having a baby with employer-sponsored health insurance increased by almost 50% in the past seven years.

The study evaluated "trends in cost-sharing for maternity care for women with employer-based health insurance plans, before and after the Affordable Care Act," which was signed into law in 2010. The study looked at over 657,061 women enrolled in large employer-sponsored health insurance plans who delivered babies between 2008 and 2015, as these plans tend to cover more than plans purchased by small businesses or individuals.

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Health

Scientists just found the crater of one of the biggest meteor crashes in Earth's history

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A meteorite crashed into Earth nearly 800,000 years ago. The meteor was 1.2 miles wide, and the impact was so big, it covered 10% of the planet with debris. However, scientists haven't been able to find the impact site for over a century. That is, until now. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal believes the crash site has been located.

Tektites, which are essentially rocks that have been liquefied from the heat of the impact and then cooled to form glass, help scientists spot the original impact site of a meteor. Upon impact, melted material is thrown into the atmosphere, then falls back to the ground. Even if the original crater has disappeared due to erosion or is hidden by a shift in tectonic plates, tektites give the spot away. Tektites between 750,000 to 35.5 million years old have been found in every continent except Antarctica.

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