Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Cars
  3. News

McDonald’s is sending Ford its garbage in the name of sustainability

Ronan Glon
By
Ford and McDonald’s: Executive In Cars Talking Coffee | Ford and the Environment | FORD

McDonald’s will soon start sending Ford a significant amount of garbage. The Blue Oval isn’t branching out into the waste processing business, but it found an innovative way to replace plastic with a natural byproduct of the coffee-roasting process.

Chaff, the coffee bean’s dried skin, is at the center of this unlikely partnership. It peels off as the beans roast, and it’s normally thrown away, but engineers found a place for it on the assembly line. It’s heated to a very high temperature in a low-oxygen environment, blended with plastics and other additives, and turned into pellets to create a new, sustainable material. It’s also 20% lighter than a comparable plastic part, and making it requires 25% less energy.

Debbie Mielewski, Ford’s senior technical leader of sustainable materials, explained the new material is better than the one it replaces. It’s easier on the environment, and it’s capable of withstanding higher temperatures. Her team initially plans to use it to manufacture headlight housings (the frame the rest of the light, including the lens, is mounted to), plus other bits and pieces found in the cabin and under the hood. You could conceivably put a cup of coffee in a cupholder made with coffee. The material is relatively hard, so it can’t replace the soft-touch parts of your car.

1 of 4
ford sourcing coffee chaff from mcdonalds to make car parts and mcdonald s collaboration
ford sourcing coffee chaff from mcdonalds to make car parts and mcdonald s collaboration
ford sourcing coffee chaff from mcdonalds to make car parts and mcdonald s collaboration
ford sourcing coffee chaff from mcdonalds to make car parts and mcdonald s collaboration

This isn’t a pie-in-the-sky material that will reach production in a few decades. McDonald’s announced it will begin forwarding a significant amount of the chaff it generates in North America to Ford so that it can be integrated into the manufacturing process. The Ranger, the company’s smallest pickup truck, will inaugurate the material. Looking ahead, Ford plans to use coffee chaff in more cars, and it will continue working with McDonald’s to find sustainable ways to use waste.

The percentage of garbage found in cars will grow during the 2020s. Researchers at Ohio State University are experimenting with ways to use tomato skins as an alternative to the carbon black found in rubber parts like tires, hoses, and suspension bushings. The team also realized eggshells ground into a fine powder can reinforce the aforementioned components.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Nissan wants the 2023 Ariya to be its comeback EV, but the bar has been raised
Front view of the 2023 Nissan Ariya.

Nissan played an understated role in the modern era of electric cars. While Tesla gets most of the attention, the Nissan Leaf became the first modern mass-market EV when it launched in December 2010. But Nissan has squandered that early lead. The Leaf remains a decent car, but Nissan needed to follow it up with another model, specifically an SUV, that would appeal to more car shoppers. That’s where the 2023 Nissan Ariya comes in.
The Ariya is the long-awaited sequel to the Leaf, boosting updated tech, better performance, and an SUV body style to match current trends. But during the Ariya’s long gestation (it was originally supposed to launch in 2021), other automakers have come up with electric SUVs of their own. So while it was once a leader, Nissan must now follow the Ford Mustang Mach-E, Hyundai Ioniq 5, and Kia EV6, among others.
Pricing starts at $44,485 (with destination) for the base Ariya Engage trim level with front-wheel drive and the smaller 65-kilowatt-hour (63-kWh usable capacity) battery pack. Pricing rises to $61,485 for the top Platinum+ model with all-wheel drive and a 91-kWh (87-kWh usable capacity) pack, but all-wheel drive models won’t arrive until after the front-wheel drive models. Nissan hasn’t discussed plans to assemble the Ariya in the U.S., so it likely won’t qualify for the revised federal EV tax credit.

Design and interior
If it had launched even two years ago, the Ariya would have looked cutting-edge. Its rounded exterior surfaces make a nod to aerodynamics while still preserving the SUV look buyers love. It’s a nice-looking vehicle too, but so are the Ford Mustang Mach-E, Hyundai Ioniq 5, and Kia EV6, all of which have gone on sale since the Ariya was announced in 2020. Nissan is no longer a trendsetter, but the Ariya can at least claim a more SUV-like feel than those other EVs, in both its tall profile and high-and-mighty driving position.
More significant than the styling, though, is that the Ariya rides on a new EV-specific platform. In contrast to the Leaf, which shares some of its structure with gasoline cars, engineers could take full advantage of the efficiencies of an electric powertrain and maximize interior space. Like certain other automakers, Nissan also opted out of a frunk in order to maximize passenger space, moving components like the air conditioner under the hood to make more room in the cabin.
Rounded surfaces nod to aerodynamics while still preserving the SUV look buyers love.

Read more
Tesla to fix window software on 1M of its U.S. cars
A 2021 Tesla Model S.

Tesla is sending out an over-the-air update to a million of its vehicles in the U.S. to fix faulty window software that could leave occupants with pinched fingers.

According to a document issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Tesla engineers discovered that the affected vehicles may not meet certain automatic window reversal system requirements. It said that in some cases, the window may exert more force before automatically retracting when sensing an obstruction such as a person’s fingers. The condition “may increase the risk of a pinching injury to the occupant,” the NHTSA’s document says.

Read more
Jeep is launching its first two electric SUVs in the U.S. in 2024
Rendering of the Jeep Recon electric SUV.

Jeep will launch four electric SUVs for North America and Europe by the end of 2025, with at least two coming to the U.S., the automaker confirmed Thursday. While Jeep has some plug-in hybrids in its lineup, these will be the brand's first all-electric models.

The first of these models to launch will be the Jeep Recon, which is scheduled to start production in 2024, with reservations opening in early 2023. While it won't be fully revealed until next year, Jeep confirmed the Recon will have a "one-touch power top, removable doors, and glass," similar to the current Jeep Wrangler. While it doesn't replace the Wrangler, it's definitely inspired by the iconic off-roader, Jim Morrison, head of the Jeep brand in North America, said during a presentation of the electrification plan.

Read more