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Kamloops News

Strong coffee, strong concrete

Keurig and Lafarge are working together to become more green.
Image Credit: Keurig

KAMLOOPS - You and the local cement plant have something in common. You’re both fuelled by coffee.

A total of 70,000 pounds of K-Cups, the individual coffee pods used in Keurig coffee makers, will be used annually as an alternative fuel source at the cement plant on Shuswap Road. Van Houtte Coffee Services collect K-Cups from commercial accounts in the B.C. Interior and delivers them to Lafarge to be used as fuel.

Fossil fuels are typically used to help create cement, which is the binder in concrete.

"As part of its worldwide sustainability ambitions to minimize fossil fuel use and their related greenhouse gas emissions, Lafarge is proud to be the recipient of used K-Cup packs which are helping manufacture a critical building material,” commented Bob Cooper, Vice President of Cement for Lafarge in western Canada.

Keurig's stated goal is for 100 per cent of its K-Cup packs to be recyclable by 2020. LaFarge Canada is also looking to improve sustainability and the environment in and around its operations by 2020. Identifying waste material that can be recycled and used by the company is just one of those improvements the company has already implemented.

"The partnership between Lafarge and Van Houtte Coffee Services Inc. is a great example of what is possible when like-minded companies start working together towards a common environmental goal,” Morten Schroder, Van Houtte Coffee Services Inc., District Manager British Columbia, said in a release.

The public is also being encouraged to drop off used K-Cup packs at the Lafarge plant located at 9750 Shuswap Road. Many individual coffee pods are also recyclable in Kamloops as long as they have are marked with a recycle number 1-7, have been rinsed out and the foil removed.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Jennifer Stahn at jstahn@infonews.ca or call 250-819-3723. To contact an editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.

News from © iNFOnews, 2014
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