Grounds-breaking new coffee project
- hello793480
- Mar 17
- 2 min read
A grounds-breaking new project at the POP shop in Dunoon is turning coffee grounds into compost here on Hillfoot Street.
Every day in Dunoon, people go into local cafes to buy a coffee. But there’s no food waste collection service for local businesses, so the spent coffee grounds end up in the bin.
As avid tea and coffee drinkers, we produce a small quantity of compostable grounds at the POP shop that we compost. But we’ve often wondered if other businesses would like to compost some of their waste too. Now that we have our own garden and small composting area here at the POP shop on Hillfoot Street, we thought it was time to try out this idea.
Can we turn a problem into an opportunity?
As part of the development of Dunoon Goes POP, our community-focused soft drinks enterprise, we’re piloting a project to collect and compost the coffee grounds from three small businesses that are close to us: Argyll Vintners, The Sweet Spot and Local Hero cafe.
Turning waste into compost
Accessing quality, locally-made compost is tricky here in Dunoon. This is why here at the POP shop we are doing what we can to make our own. We have small compost bays and a worm farm so far, showing how even in a small garden, you can make your compost.
“Collecting coffee grounds to help us grow ingredients for other drinks was too appetising an opportunity to miss.
Funded by Awards for All, Argyll and Bute Climate Action Network, our pilot project will give coffee waste a new life in our garden.
“Collecting coffee grounds to help us grow ingredients for other drinks was too appetising an opportunity to miss,” says Hannah Clinch, co-founder of Dunoon Goes POP.
“We collect the grounds and process them in our composting system in our Dunoon Goes POP drinks garden. They’ll help us to create nutritious local compost to use in our garden and give our plants a healthy soil to grow in.”
What is POP shop enterprises CIC?
We are a social enterprise based on Hillfoot Street, one of Dunoon’s retail streets. We run a small coworks space and Dunoon Goes POP, our community-inspired soft drinks enterprise. At the back of the POP shop, we nurture our Dunoon Goes POP Drinks Garden which is bursting with flavoursome plants used to make drinks and provide habitat for local wildlife.
Collecting coffee grounds to help us grow ingredients for other drinks was too appetising an opportunity to miss.
We are on a mission to work with people to design heritage-inspired solutions to climate change that build health and wealth in our community. As we develop Dunoon Goes POP products and services, we aim to reduce waste and contribute to the circular economy in our community.
How can you support our work?
You can help us with our mission!
Come along to our events,
Tell your friends and family,
Share a link to the POP shop website on your business website or social media.