To get coffee beans, producers remove the fruit’s skin, pulp, and other filmy bits. They then dry and roast the remains to make the grounds. Approximately half the weight of a coffee harvest will end up as waste. A recent experiment tested whether coffee pulp could help bring Costa Rica’s rainforests back to life. Researchers from the University of Hawai'i at Manoa tested two plots to see how the coffee waste would help restore deforested land, covering one parcel of grass with about 20 inches of the pulp and leaving the other untouched. At each site, land had been exploited for years and was covered by invasive grasses reaching 16 feet tall preventing native rainforests from easily regrowing. After two years, the plot of land given a boost from coffee showed a dramatic improvement. Eighty percent of the plot was covered by young tree canopy, including tropical species that can grow as tall as 60 feet—versus just 20 percent in the untreated plot. In the coffee-fueled plot, trees were also four times taller on average, soil samples were more nutrient-rich, and invasive grasses had been eliminated. Read more on the experiment https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/forest-on-caffeine-how-coffee-helps-forests-grow-faster https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2688-8319.12054