In Australia, a team of students at the Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT) are launching a new social enterprise called ‘Grind to Ground’, using coffee grounds and sawdust to produce compost.
Grind to Ground will officially launch at the CIT Plant Show at CIT Bruce campus on Saturday, 14 November, 2020, from 9 am until 1 pm. It is a sustainable business that collects clean sawdust from the CIT carpentry department and combines it with clean, used coffee grounds to create soil or compost enhancer which can be added to home gardens to enrich the soil.
The social enterprise will employ people living with an intellectual disability, and is currently working on producing the first batch of soil or compost enhancer.
Most coffee grounds and clean sawdust is thrown out as landfill, however Grind to Ground intends recycle and provide meaningful paid employment for people living with an intellectual disability.
The project originated as an assignment, but the team members decided they wanted to start a business from the concept.
The Grind to Ground team is currently looking for cafes and restaurants to donate coffee grounds, and volunteers to pick up the coffee grounds and transport them to the CIT Bruce campus where they will be mixed with sawdust and packaged into bags for sale.
The team is also currently working with community organisations to ensure employment opportunities are available for people living with an intellectual disability.
It can take so long for a person with an intellectual disability to find a real, meaningful paid job – sometimes years. I know a person who left school at 18 and it took until she was 23 years old to find a job.
Everyone deserves the right to have meaningful paid employment which they enjoy, and the benefits of having a job are the same as they are for everyone else – an income, social contact and a feeling of achievement at the end of the day.
Liza Pozzato, Grind to Ground team member
The team are pledging for volunteers and coffee or clean sawdust donations. Contact the Grind to Ground team by email, Facebook or Instagram.
