INSIGHTS: What One Million Coffee Pucks Tell Us About the Future of Hospitality

Every cup of coffee served in a café leaves something behind.

For years, most of it—spent coffee grounds—has quietly ended up in landfill, out of sight and largely out of mind. But across New South Wales, that pattern is beginning to shift in a way that says something much bigger about where hospitality is heading.

Since October, a growing network of cafés has helped divert one million coffee pucks from landfill, marking a significant milestone for the state’s first large-scale coffee waste diversion program.

The initiative, Giving a Puck, is led by Single O in partnership with Reground, a certified social enterprise that collects spent coffee grounds and redirects them for reuse in community gardens and other applications. Instead of decomposing in landfill and releasing methane, the waste is given a second life—something increasingly important in an industry under pressure to operate more sustainably.

“Reaching one million coffee pucks in just six months really brings the impact into focus,” said Mike Brabant. “It’s a tangible, physical outcome—real material being kept out of landfill. That’s incredibly satisfying and humbling.”

Founded in Melbourne in 2014 by Ninna Larsen, Reground expanded into New South Wales last year through its partnership with Single O. Since then, more than 100 cafés and restaurants across the state have joined the program as part of its initial rollout.

The scale of the issue is hard to ignore. An estimated 75 million kilograms of coffee waste ends up in Australian landfills each year, contributing to methane emissions—a greenhouse gas significantly more potent than carbon dioxide.

What makes this milestone noteworthy is not just the number, but what it represents.

If just over 100 venues can divert one million coffee pucks in six months, it highlights how much impact is possible when sustainability becomes part of everyday operations rather than a separate initiative.

For hospitality professionals, this is where the shift becomes tangible. Sustainability is no longer limited to sourcing better ingredients or reducing single-use plastics. It is extending into the quieter, less visible parts of operations—waste, systems, and habits that have long been overlooked.

Participating venues in the program are provided with dedicated bins for coffee grounds, integrated alongside existing waste and recycling systems. Reground then collects and redistributes the material, with service costs comparable to standard waste disposal—an important detail for businesses balancing environmental goals with operational realities.

As the initiative enters its next phase, the focus is on expanding participation and maintaining momentum.

“Our goal is to see every café in Sydney and across New South Wales upcycling their coffee waste,” Brabant said. “Sustainability in specialty coffee shouldn’t stop at sourcing; it needs to extend through to disposal. It’s about moving from ‘crop to cup’ to ‘crop to compost.’”

Looking ahead, Reground estimates that within its first five years in Sydney, the program could divert around three million kilograms of coffee waste from landfill—the equivalent of approximately 85 million cups of coffee.

For an industry built on daily habits and small, repeated actions, that kind of change matters.

Because in hospitality, progress does not always come from sweeping transformations. Sometimes, it starts with something as simple—and as overlooked—as what is left behind in a coffee puck.