Abstract:
With increased coffee production and consumption globally, the coffee industry is gradually embracing a circular
economy to curb high carbon and water footprints. Currently, coffee consumption has become part of our daily
lives. However, wet coffee processing and coffee wastewater treatment stages are a major source of carbon
emission and high-water footprint. This study is designed to evaluate and mitigate carbon and water footprints in
wet coffee processing and optimize the coffee wastewater treatment process at the wet mill factory. The results
show that from 2019 to 2023 wet mill B had the highest mean carbon and water footprints at (4707.28 t CO2-e &
9880.47 m3
) as compared to wet mill A (1867.58 t CO2-e & 3917.62 m3
) and wet mill C (2788.48 t CO2-e & 5844
m3
) respectively. The major source of carbon emission was wastewater generation (99 %) while water footprint
was the pulping, washing and fermentation stages (99 %). The optimization of coffee wastewater treatment
technology by the integration of constructed wetland has the potential to reduce COD and BOD concentration by
80 %. The use of efficient fermentation methods, treated wastewater reuse, biogas capture and conversion to
clean energy and automation of wet coffee processing can reduce carbon and water footprints.
