Used coffee grounds are being repurposed to conserve and improve topsoil quality as part of the Childs Road Upgrade in Melbourne’s north.
In a first for a major infrastructure project in Victoria, the equivalent of 250,000 lattes’ worth of coffee grounds will be incorporated into the project.
Social enterprise Reground has sourced grounds for the project from cafes in the area, including Tyler’s Milk Bar and Café Colores in Reservoir; Drip Drop, Bagels Baby and Poppy Café in Pascoe Vale; and Genovese in Coburg.
The 60 cubic metres of coffee grounds will be mixed with topsoil during landscaping – boosting the nutrient levels within the soil to help freshly planted seeds and seedlings thrive.
Coffee grounds on their own are too acidic, but mixed with other organic matter such as topsoil, they can help feed the soil with high levels of carbon, potassium, and nitrogen. It is expected this will nurture the soil and create greener landscaping around upgraded sections of road and shared user paths.
More than 160 trees and 27,500 shrubs will be planted as the Childs Road Upgrade project nears completion.
In keeping with Victoria’s Recycled First policy, the project has also used more than six tonnes of 100 per cent recycled plastic eMesh – manufactured by Ballarat’s Fibrecon – which replaces traditional steel mesh and non-recycled plastic fibres for reinforcement.
Workers have also installed 470 metres of recycled pipes, made from the equivalent of around 150,000 2-litre plastic milk bottles.
The Childs Road Upgrade is being delivered by Major Road Projects Victoria and ACE Contractors, and is due for completion by the end of 2022.
For more information, visit: bigbuild.vic.gov.au
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