Signed a business agreement with Cheonil Energy to operate a one-stop system from emission reporting on a mobile platform to free collection and recycling... Reducing waste disposal fees and carbon emissions with former Biyesan budget, partners secure raw materials for eco-friendly woodchip production... Collecting coffee shop participation requests in June, distributing collection bags to confirmed stores for full implementation starting July
Yangcheon-gu (Mayor Lee Gi-jae) announced that it has signed a "Coffee Grounds Recycling Business Agreement" with Cheonil Energy (CEO Park Sang-won), establishing the first one-stop processing system in a Seoul autonomous district that handles everything from coffee grounds disposal reporting using a mobile platform to free on-site collection and recycling.
This agreement represents a win-win business model between the parties involved. The district can reduce waste disposal fees and carbon emissions through free collection and recycling by the partner company without budget input, thereby promoting a circular economy.
Additionally, the partner company benefits by securing eco-friendly bioenergy raw materials from local coffee shops.
Coffee grounds are the byproduct left after making coffee; only 0.2% of coffee beans are used for coffee, while the remaining 99.8% are disposed of in volume-based waste bags and landfilled or incinerated as household waste. The problem is that discarded coffee grounds accelerate environmental pollution. Incinerating coffee grounds emits greenhouse gases amounting to 338 kg per ton, and landfilling causes soil contamination. Moreover, with the ban on direct landfill of household waste in the metropolitan area starting in 2026, local governments urgently need waste reduction measures.
In response, the district focused on the fact that coffee grounds have a high calorific value suitable for biofuel use and contain no harmful substances such as heavy metals, making them organic resources that can be recycled as compost. Consequently, it established a "Coffee Grounds One-Stop Processing System" based on free on-site collection in partnership with Cheonil Energy, the largest woodchip producer in Korea.
The "Coffee Grounds One-Stop Processing System" operates by having local coffee businesses wishing to dispose of waste report their disposal via the easy waste processing mobile platform app "Jiguhada" daily. Cheonil Energy then visits the business the next day to collect all coffee grounds free of charge and processes them to produce eco-friendly woodchips, an alternative to fossil fuels. This system resolves previous issues with manpower mobilization for collection and transportation and securing storage space, enabling full recycling that contributes to energy fuel cost reduction and air quality improvement.
Furthermore, the district plans to utilize data on the quantity of coffee grounds collected daily, collection requests, and processing status received from the partner company for waste reduction data collection and analysis in Yangcheon-gu. Through this, the district will analyze the waste reduction effects of separate coffee grounds disposal and consider expanding the project to other related industries.
The district plans to start accepting free on-site collection requests from 508 coffee shops in the area in June. Once the beneficiary businesses are finalized, coffee grounds exclusive collection bags will be distributed, and the project will be launched in earnest from July.
Lee Gi-jae, Mayor of Yangcheon-gu, stated, "This coffee grounds recycling project is meaningful as it leads policies for air quality improvement, energy saving, and activation of the circular economy through public-private cooperation." He added, "Small actions can create a better future, so we hope many local coffee businesses will show interest and apply. We will continue to implement various eco-friendly policies for sustainable development to create a clean city of Yangcheon."
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