It’s a major element in most morning routines, but now coffee has made its infrastructure debut.

An innovation by RMIT University has been used for the first time in a major infrastructure project, which saw biochar made from spent coffee grounds mixed with concrete as a replacement of a portion of the river sand that’s normally used being laid into a footpath in Victoria.

Major Roads Projects Victoria (MRPV) and project contractor BildGroup put the biochar to use along a busy road in Pakenham as part of Victoria’s Big Build.

Organic waste going to landfill, including spent coffee grounds, contributes to 3 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. However, this waste can’t be added directly to concrete as it would decompose over time and weaken the building material. This is why the used coffee was first converted into biochar before being added to the concrete mix.

MRPV Program Director Brendan Pauwels said coffee concrete had the potential to cut costs and remove vast amounts of waste material from landfill.

“These numbers are remarkable in terms of ecological benefit, and we’re excited to see the Pakenham Roads Upgrade be the first Victorian Big Build project to use the coffee concrete,” he said

RMIT Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr Rajeev Roychand, the lead inventor of the coffee concrete, was excited to partner with BildGroup and MRPV for the translation of the RMIT team’s research into Victorian government’s Big Build projects

“This proactive support plays a significant role in creating a potential for diverting all forms of biodegradable organic waste, which is currently ending up in landfills and contributing to 3% of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions,” Dr Roychand said.

Australia generates 75 million kilograms of ground coffee waste every year – most of it goes to landfills, but it could replace up to 655 million kilograms of sand in concrete because it is a denser material. Globally, 10 billion kilograms of spent coffee is generated annually, which could replace up to 90 billion kilograms of sand in concrete.

For this project, Earth Systems converted 5 tonnes of spent coffee grounds – about 140,000 coffees worth of grounds – into 2 tonnes of useable biochar, which has been laid into the 30m cubed footpath along McGregor Road in Pakenham.