LONDON, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- A coffee-based biofuel will be used to help power London's public buses from Monday in a bid to reduce transport emission, local media reported.
Bio-bean, a London-based green-energy start-up, said it has produced enough coffee-derived biofuel to power one bus for a whole year, the BBC reported.
The company collects waste coffee grounds mostly from London's coffee shops for processing, and tops the resulting coffee oil with a range of animal and vegetable oil.
The final mix, consisting of 80 percent of diesel and 20 percent of biofuels, can reduce carbon emission from a bus journey by 10 percent to 15 percent, the AFP reported.
The buses can be powered by the new biofuel without the need for modification, said the company.
Londoners consume 2.3 cups of coffee a day on average and produce a total of 200,000 tons of coffee waste a year, according to Bio-bean.
To push for its green initiatives, the city of London has increasingly turned to biofuels for its public transportation. According to the reports, some of the capital's 9,500 buses are already powered by biofuels produced from cooking oil and tallow from meat processing.
Bio-bean founder Arthur Kay said the company hopes to expand next to France, where 38 billion cups of coffee are consumed a year.
