Let coffee grounds put "environmentally friendly" wings and grow mushrooms on coffee grounds.

Coffee grounds, which are regarded as rubbish, have become fashionable and environmentally friendly products favored by some NGO, foreign enterprises and neighborhoods in Shanghai. It is mainly made of recycled coffee grounds and other natural ingredients and can grow mushrooms. If it is only this simple, how can it attract such grand attention? Its birth, its designed journey of life, and the meaning it has been given are all interesting and extraordinary.

Grow mushrooms on coffee grounds

Its fashionable English name is MuMu CoCo, and it was born in a company called Xingeng Workshop.

On January 19 and 20, 2012, a total of 1000 MuMu CoCo were transported to six neighborhood committees in Tangqiao Street in Shanghai and distributed to residents free of charge. In each community, it took only 30 to 40 minutes for the staff to distribute all the bacterial sticks.

Most of the recipients are the elderly. An old man said, wouldn't it be better to grow flowers and plants at home and add a fungus stick? Children see MuMu CoCo as a toy, and parents want them to watch the mushrooms grow.

According to Xingeng's design, such a distribution plan will last for a year: a bacterial stick can grow at least two crops of mushrooms in two months, then disassemble the stick, mix the raw materials into the soil, and become fertilizer for flowers, melons and fruits. Xingeng will commission the farm to cultivate flowers and fruit seedlings, and two months later, they will be distributed to these residents free of charge. As a result, residents can make use of their bottles and cans.

In the online store, the price of a MuMu CoCo is 48 yuan. Why can Xingeng distribute so many bacterial sticks for free?

This is a social enterprise dedicated to poverty alleviation. Zhu Pingzhao, an investor, is of Singaporean origin. Xingeng designs handicrafts for poor, mentally handicapped and other vulnerable groups, and then carries out production training for them. After that, Xingeng paid for the purchase of raw materials and distributed them for production. After the products were recycled, Xingeng was responsible for sales. Those big companies are the most important purchasers of these handicrafts, and they give them to customers as gifts.

In addition to paying the producers' wages, the rest of the income from handicrafts is used as the wages of Xingeng staff and the research and development expenses of new products. The research and development, testing and other funds of MuMuCoCo come from this.

MuMu CoCo can't be distributed for free forever, and it costs a lot of money. It consists of two parts: transportation and bacterial stick production. Every week, Xingeng rents a car to various scattered points to recycle coffee grounds and transport them to a professional mushroom factory to make bacteria sticks.

However, Song Chunhui, director of the Tangqiao Social Organization Service Center in Shanghai's Pudong New area, has said privately that the government will not treat him badly, and that the Street livelihood Fund is dedicated to supporting excellent public welfare projects, and the government will certainly take it into account when purchasing community services.

In the future, bacterial sticks will still be distributed to residents free of charge, but their costs will be sponsored by enterprises, funded by foundations, or purchased by the government. At present, several streets in Shanghai want to purchase the project, two foundations have expressed their willingness to support it, and two companies are also interested in sponsoring the project.

However, according to Zhu Pingzhao's vision, the bacterial sticks will eventually be purchased by the residents themselves, as long as everyone accepts the concepts of garbage recycling and safe food.

In the past, coffee grounds were thrown away as garbage, but coffee grounds are actually very good organic fertilizer. If we start from recycling coffee grounds to plant mushrooms, and then grow melons, fruits, vegetables and flowers, it can not only reduce garbage emissions, but also improve the environment of homes and offices.

Environmental protection is a kind of fashion

MuMu CoCo was born in Shanghai and its raw materials come from well-known foreign-funded enterprises.

This is one of the most fashionable cities in China. Cafes with elegant decoration and romantic environment have sprung up everywhere in Shanghai. Starbucks alone has more than 130 stores in Shanghai. In addition, as of December 2011, Shanghai has gathered 347 regional headquarters of multinational corporations, 237 investment companies of multinational corporations, 332 R & D centers of multinational corporations, etc., and the economy of foreign capital headquarters in Shanghai has ranked first in mainland China. On the other hand, foreign companies are used to providing freshly ground coffee for employees in the office area. According to media reports, in 2005, China's annual coffee consumption has reached 500000 bags, about 30 million kg, showing an average annual growth rate of 20%. Data show that every 350 ml cup of freshly ground coffee produces 20 grams of coffee grounds.

"MuMu CoCo is actually an environmentally friendly product, but also a fashion product. And our largest consumer group is 25 to 35-year-old young people, they are the most fashionable. So providing display space and coffee grounds can enhance the reputation of our brand, and it can also create a culture that affects my employees and customers, so that we can see that it is not difficult to give back to nature. " Fang Liqiong, the boss of fragrant coffee, said. To this end, incense has added a special trash can for coffee grounds. Every two days, the distribution car will transport the coffee grounds from each branch to the headquarters, waiting for Xingeng to recycle once a week.

In addition, foreign companies such as SAP and KPMG provide coffee grounds for Xingeng Workshop. Cummins filter system also has two freshly ground coffee machines in the office area, which not only began to provide coffee grounds for Xingeng, but also sent employees to volunteer to participate in the event, and has applied to the Cummins Global Foundation in the United States for funding for the project.

Cummins requires each employee to participate in community service assessment indicators for four hours a year. Over the years, their community services have mainly focused on environmental protection, education and social equity. On the first Shanghai Charity Partnership Day held in November 2011, they discovered the "Coffee grounds campaign" promoted by Xingeng and immediately became interested.

How did MuMu CoCo get born?

The reason why MuMu CoCo is so accepted is that it meets several key points of successful community public welfare products: first, the satisfaction of the clients of the community. Secondly, large companies that pay attention to the construction of corporate social responsibility, looking for public welfare projects, and foundations looking for ideal public welfare projects are consumers of public welfare products, and they are all satisfied with this product. Third, the design of the capital chain of public welfare products meets the participation of many parties. MuMu CoCo can not only absorb enterprises to provide coffee grounds, volunteers, etc., but also provide financial support space for foundations and large companies.

Because of this, a social enterprise called Zhi Teng Nong, which builds a bridge between safe food producers and consumers, also uses MuMu CoCo as its main promotion product. Singapore enterprise Orange Yi Investment Consulting (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. also wants to hitch a ride with MuMu CoCo to design the enterprise LOGO on the plant wall.

MuMu CoCo is also favored by the government because it helps to promote waste sorting. In 2011, the Shanghai municipal government launched a pilot project of garbage sorting, and the Oriental neighborhood Committee under the jurisdiction of Tangqiao Street is one of the pilot projects.

"the government has invested a lot of money to implement it from the top down, the residents do not pay enough attention and participation, and the residents do not realize the value of garbage classification. On the other hand, MuMu CoCo can provide an easy environmental education, and residents can directly experience the process of turning waste into treasure. This bottom-up environmental protection campaign is a useful complement to the Government's implementation of waste sorting. " Song Chunhui, director of Tangqiao Social Organization Service Center in Pudong New area, Shanghai.

In Shanghai, government purchase is an important financial source for the survival of social organizations. The Tangqiao street where Xingeng is located spends as much as 20 million yuan on social services throughout the year. In 2009, the street also set up the first social organization service center in the country to provide services for social organizations in the area. The center has 1200 square meters of office space, which is currently provided free of charge to 15 social organizations, including Xingeng. And guide their service direction to connect with the needs of the community.

At first, Zhu Pingzhao only envisioned the establishment of a popular science base for growing mushrooms with coffee grounds in the community. However, Tangqiao Social Organization Service Center believes that this requires a lot of space and investment, which is not realistic. So Zhu abandoned his old ideas and found the current way.

This is the soil of public welfare and fashionable Shanghai, headquarter economically active Shanghai together to give birth to fashionable MuMu CoCo. She has a "coat" made of a beautiful carton. You cut a window along the dotted line on the side, draw a V-shaped "mouth" on the plastic bag, spray water twice a day, and a few weeks later, it not only produces delicious mushrooms, but also contributes to the cause of environmental protection.