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Ford Will Turn McDonald's Used Coffee Bean Husks Into Car Parts (engadget.com) 47

Posted by BeauHD from the sustainable-projects dept.
Ford will soon start using coffee chaff from McDonald's to manufacture auto parts like headlamp housings and other interior and exterior components. "In addition to making Ford vehicles a little bit 'greener,' the coffee chaff -- or the waste produced by coffee during the roasting process -- will apparently also help the company make parts that are 20 percent lighter," reports Engadget. From the report: Ford already uses various sustainable materials like soy and tree cellulose in an effort to only use recycled and renewable plastics in its vehicles. It has added coffee chaff to the list after its research team discovered that it can be turned into a durable product by heating it to high temperatures under low oxygen and mixing it with additives like plastic. The material will then be turned into pellets that can be formed into various shapes. During the team's tests, they found that the chaff-based material has "significantly better" heat properties than the current material Ford is using. They also discovered that it'll allow the company to enjoy 25 percent energy savings during the molding process. McDonald's is expected to earmark a significant portion of the coffee chaff its North American operations produce for this project. While it's not entirely clear how much chaff that is, McD's generates 62 million pounds of chaff a year in the continent alone, which is currently just used to make coal and garden mulch.
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Ford Will Turn McDonald's Used Coffee Bean Husks Into Car Parts More

Ford Will Turn McDonald's Used Coffee Bean Husks Into Car Parts

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  • "...they found that the chaff-based material has "significantly better" heat properties than the current material Ford is using."

    The current materials are capable of handling the "heat load" are bulbs going to become less efficient?

    "They also discovered that it'll allow the company to enjoy 25 percent energy savings during the molding process."

    "It has added coffee chaff to the list after its research team discovered that it can be turned into a durable product by heating it to high temperatures under low ox

  • "McD's generates 62 million pounds of chaff a year in the continent alone, which is currently just used to make coal..."
    Will this put coal miners out of work?

    • Wood scrap and sawdust from Ford plants were the original source material for Kingsford Charcoal briquets.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by meglon ( 1001833 )

        Wood scrap and sawdust from Ford plants were the original source material for Mcdonald's milkshakes.

        Fixed that for you.

    • Also I learned that there is something left behind by whatever magic makes Mcdonalds' coffee. I gauge by flavor that it ends up in the cup.

    • Probably not, since I'm pretty sure you can't actually make coal. Charcoal, yeah, but coal? Is someone spending a few million years pouring pressure and energy into the compressed chaff? Probably not.

      My money is on it either being a typo, or that someone is an idiot.

      Hopefully, not me.

  • From coffee cans to coffee (Score:3)

    by RazorSharp ( 1418697 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2019 @09:50PM (#59486372)

    This is very much in line with what Ford has done historically. For years they used coffee cans as vacuum canisters. Going back even further, they used to specify that certain items were shipped in a specific sized box because then they could reuse it as a battery box.

    A lot of Ford's innovations are on the production side of things. This is why, historically, they've been so conservative when it came to vehicle features. For example, a 50s 8N Ford tractor uses the same starter solenoid as a 1995 F-150. It's a simple part and they had no compelling reason to change them for like a half century.

    • This is very much in line with what Ford has done historically.

      There's a story about Henry Ford trying to build car body parts out of soy fiber material. They actually got to the prototype stage but they couldn't figure out how to get rid of the smell. According to Ford's #2 guy (I forget the name) it was like driving a morgue.

      • If you go to the Henry Ford Museum/Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan they actually have the old "soy lab" where they experimented with that stuff. I forgot about that one—it's a better parallel.

    • To be honest, looking at such news, I just get tired of wondering)) I can only be glad now that my Honda will not receive such new products. I prefer spare parts that I won't doubt - https://honda.autopartsfull.co... [autopartsfull.com] Electric bikes can be gentle and environmentally friendly. The family car must be strong and reliable. You may call me too old-fashioned but that is a fact.
    • Your anecdotes of efficiency and simplicity have delighted me.
  • A car, that just like its owners, runs on Caffeine.
  • I can tell you I wasn't too thrilled with my last "Egg McMuffler".

  • And a solution to drivers falling asleep at the wheel.

  • Here's a fun fact: 40% of all food produced in the United States ends up in a landfill. Currently the best we do with it is to try to harvest some methane outgas from decomposition, but it would be far better to create a waste stream for food and other waste biomass that gets used locally to produce fertilizer that can potentially replace some of the billions of tons of petroleum-based chemical fertilizers that are used every year on industrial crops.

    I guess McDonalds and Ford get more out of some feel-good

  • Add bittering agents!!! There's huge auto parking lots at the Denver international airport, some short-term and close, some long term and out next to fields. People will go out to their cars in the long term lots and find their German cars won't start after sitting a week. Apparently, some German cars went with "green" wiring insulation, which the rabbits that live next to the lot have learned they can eat, unlike plastic wiring. So the world suffers the carbon footprint of a tow truck and a spare part manu

  • That's nothing (Score:3)

    by LatencyKills ( 1213908 ) on Thursday December 05, 2019 @08:03AM (#59487218)
    MacDonalds has been making coffee out of used motor oil from Ford trucks for years.
  • Years ago in a patriotic, buy-American theme, I made the mistake of buying a Ford Taurus. Worst car I ever owned! Now you couldn't give me a Ford anything. They will somehow dork up the parts made from coffee chaff, etc. This is just another reason to avoid Ford.

    • Indeed. Ford is cheap garbage and every asshole owns a mustang because it's the cheapest horsepower. The Focus RS might be a fun car but it's a fucking Ford.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      Years ago in a patriotic, buy-American theme, I made the mistake of buying a Ford Taurus. Worst car I ever owned! Now you couldn't give me a Ford anything. They will somehow dork up the parts made from
      coffee chaff, etc. This is just another reason to avoid Ford.

      The 14 Focus I bought was a decent car but the transmission was crap (in fact there was a class action suit on it). I sold it last year when I inherited my grandfather's 04 F150 and that thing is a beast. My first car (in 2003 or so) was a 1980 Bronco that sat in my grandfather's 100 year old drafty barn for a decade and needed nothing but new paint, upholstery, and some cables/hoses. When Ford makes good stuff, they make good stuff.

    • Goes back a ways now, but I owned a 1997 F-150 that seemed indestructible. I was still driving it in 2017, nearing 200,000 miles, when my wife wrecked it in the snow. It never needed anything other than common maintenance. Interesting note: when I went to replace it, I looked at a 2018 F-150, and found the aluminum bed sides to be tissue paper thin, and the base price up near $39k - too rich for my blood. I ended up buying an end of year 2017 Ram 1500 for $23k which is more comfortable to drive than the
  • I Wonder if Ford will make major parts out of the hulls? I worked with a fellow in the early 70s who drove a medium size Plymouth. I noticed that he didn't bring his car to work for several days, so I asked him where it was. He said that he had stripped his distributor worm gear and was in the process of fixing it. I said that it was hard to believe that a worm gear could be stripped. He said that Chrysler made the gears out of fiber board because it made the gear quieter. I saw through this as jus

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