Ford is Using Waste from This Fast Food Company’s Coffee Beans to Make Parts

Well Ford has certainly found an interesting way to make car parts that can offer better fuel efficiency.

The automaker has teamed up with fast food giant McDonald’s and is using the fast food chain’s coffee beans to make interior car components and for things under the hood.

Ford is using McDonald’s discarded coffee chaff, which is the husk of the coffee bean that comes off during roasting. By using this material, the company’s car parts will be 20% lighter, better for fuel efficiency, and will provide the company with up to 25% energy savings during the molding of the parts.

Usually this material is turned into garden mutch or charcoal or is even thrown out. Many do not know that when you heat the material and mix it with plastic and other additives, it can be formed into pellets and then into various other shapes.

The first auto component Ford will produce using the chaff will be headlamp housings.

The company will be assisted by Competitive Green Technologies, which processes the coffee chaff for Ford, and the automaker’s supplier Varroc Lighting Systems.

The headlamp housings are expected to go into production by the end of the year for the Lincoln Continental.

Disclaimer: We have no position in Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) and have not been compensated for this article.