Giving Compass' Take:

• The Guardian reports on a UK-funded program that is working with Colombian researchers on removing the contaminants from coffee bean wastewater and generating electricity in the process.

• Can this same process be applied to other waste materials? How can nonprofits and other organizations support more sustainable farming practices in general?

• Here's another example on renewable electricity. 

Scientists have turned coffee waste into electricity for the first time, in research that could help farmers and curb pollution in the developing world.

The coffee industry generates a huge amount of liquid waste during the process of turning the raw material of the tree — the coffee cherries — into the 9.5m tons of coffee the world produces each year.

A team led by the University of Surrey developed a fuel cell that uses microbes instead of chemicals like a fuel cell in a hydrogen car, which eat the waste matter and generate a small amount of energy.

Dr Claudio Avignone Rossa, a systems microbiologist at the university, said: “You’re not going to light up London with these things, but you’re going to put a light where there was none.

“The farmer will be getting a little bit of energy coming from the waste they are throwing away. So the environment will be cleaner. The finances of the farm will be improved.”

Read the full article about turning coffee waste into electricity by Adam Vaughan at The Guardian.