{"id":189428,"date":"2025-06-16T16:35:21","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T16:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/189428\/"},"modified":"2025-06-16T16:35:21","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T16:35:21","slug":"brewing-up-a-coffee-recycling-business-for-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/189428\/","title":{"rendered":"Brewing up a coffee recycling business for Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is there any more depressing scenario from modern office life than approaching the breakroom coffee pot and swirling the dregs in the glass carafe that have been scorching leftover java on the hot plate for three hours?\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the sickly sweet smell of generational ennui.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But for Maddie Cataldo and Maya Nefs, burnt coffee gives off the smell of success.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cataldo and Nefs love their coffee so much they can\u2019t bear to let any part of the coffee-making process go to waste. And they cherish environmental activism so much that they invented a product that reuses coffee\u2019s biggest waste: The dry husks that flake off the intensely-flavored beans during the drying and roasting process.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Working from a small garage in Golden, entrepreneurs Maddie Cataldo, left, and Maya Nefs prepare and package their handmade fire products made from coffee chaff and soy wax on June 12, 2025. Cataldo uses a paddle on a drill to mix the chaff as Nefs adds the melted soy wax. (Kathryn Scott, Special to The Colorado Sun)<\/p>\n

Their business, Blazin\u2019 Joe, compresses tons of those husks, mixes in a flammable but environmentally sound soy-based wax, and churns out a coffee brick as a campfire log or firestarter sticks. Not only are the former business school mates repurposing waste products, they argue, but they\u2019re also helping people avoid the petroleum-chemical smells and residues of traditional paper-based artificial logs. (The molded sticks give off a pleasant toasted scent, but the smoke from burning is fairly neutral, and doesn\u2019t taint the marshmallows.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make an environmentally friendly product, and also one that\u2019s a lot better alternative for your health than what\u2019s out there,\u201d Cataldo said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They still have side gigs, but the pair are working tirelessly, with some help from Cataldo\u2019s entrepreneurial father, to build Blazin\u2019 Joe into a full-time, thriving business. Nefs picks up loads of spent bean husks from a couple of local roasters, and they process and package the bricks in her garage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The industrial cauldron for melting the soy wax is a modified Crock Pot. The mixer is a drill with a long auger bit. A cousin made one of the brick molds with his 3-D printer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Working from a small garage in Golden, entrepreneurs Maddie Cataldo and Maya Nefs prepare and package their handmade fire products made from coffee chaff and soy wax on June 12, 2025. Bags filled with coffee chaff, which is waste after a coffee bean is roasted, is the base ingredient for the logs and starters. (Kathryn Scott, Special to The Colorado Sun)<\/p>\n

And like all social media-savvy young businesses, they\u2019ve now got some decent merch. They commissioned an art student friend to draw T-shirts with \u201cDay of the Dead\u201d-style skeletons enjoying their joe around, what else, a campfire. One hundred percent cotton, sustainable water-based ink<\/a>, mailed in recycled polymer bags.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Their dedication to reuse and their high-energy, relatable approach are winning praise from circular economy advocates, who want to see more Colorado materials diverted from the waste stream and made into usable commodities.<\/p>\n

\u201cColorado has become this hot spot, which is great,\u201d said Laurie Johnson, co-founder and CEO of the nonprofit Circular Colorado recycling and reuse organization. Johnson cited policy changes like a producers\u2019 packaging fee to support recycling expansion, and cities like Denver expanding composting to everyone. \u201cWe went from being at the tail end of recycling and sustainability, so it\u2019s really fun to watch Colorado become a leader in circularity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado\u2019s overall waste diversion rate has lagged far behind the most successful states in recent years. Circular Colorado provides a development center to help businesses like Blazin\u2019 Joe ramp up production and find markets, while NextCycle Colorado adds in pitch competitions and other entrepreneurial support.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Blazin\u2019 Joe won NextCycle\u2019s 2025 $5,000 grand prize in the pitch competition, beating out other worthy businesses like an electric vehicle battery recycler and a second-hand furniture distributor. Cataldo and Nefs now face the same kind of \u201cchicken or the egg\u201d challenges that test any growing small business, Johnson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll need warehouse and production space to fulfill larger orders, as well as a steadier supply of coffee husks from cooperative roasters. But to secure that space and land investment capital for expansion, they\u2019ll want to show solid orders and growing demand for the fire bricks, Johnson added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Working from a small garage in Golden, entrepreneurs Maddie Cataldo and Maya Nefs prepare and package their handmade fire products made from coffee chaff and soy wax on June 12, 2025. Cataldo pours the chaff mixed with the melted soy wax into forms that will make the fire starters. (Kathryn Scott, Special to The Colorado Sun)<\/p>\n

\u201cThen the people that want to buy it don\u2019t want to wait that long for you to produce it. So it\u2019s kind of managing that gap in the middle,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Blazin\u2019 Joe praises the Ace Hardware group of stores for helping them secure valuable shelf space. The coffee logs retail at $27 for four campfire bricks and $9 for eight firestarters. Johnson said Colorado Ace stores have been a great partner to many sustainable business entrepreneurs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cataldo and Nefs met while playing hockey at CU Boulder, and were taking some of the same business classes. Cataldo used the burning-coffee idea as her business capstone project, and Nefs joined in. They tried using actual coffee grounds, post-drip, first. But drying out the grounds to the point they would make good fuel took too much energy to justify a sustainable business concept.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when Cataldo\u2019s father, who had developed and eventually sold a biodiesel sustainable fuel business, helped them work on the drier bean husks as the base fuel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The pair are open about small business growing pains. Cataldo moved back home to Massachusetts, \u201cto, well, to not be paying rent.\u201d They\u2019re using the two-state strategy to work on new markets, with Massachusetts and all of New England full of home fireplaces and frequent campers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Where to focus the mail-order business is another puzzle. Everyone says \u201cget on Amazon,\u201d but they are studying which online retailers take what percentage cut of sales before jumping deeper into those markets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dropping new merch was a big development. In addition to the sustainable cotton and ink, Blazin\u2019 Joe gives $2 per shirt to the Nature Conservancy, and $2 to the local artist, who was actually Cataldo\u2019s first-year college roommate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re obviously not making enough to pay ourselves livable wages yet, but we\u2019re not losing money on anything, and people seem happy with the price point,\u201d Nefs said. \u201cSo it\u2019s really just about bringing the major costs down. And we\u2019ve got some ideas cooking.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Working from a small garage in Golden, entrepreneurs Maddie Cataldo and Maya Nefs prepare and package their handmade fire products made from coffee chaff and soy wax on June 12, 2025. Using her own weight, Cataldo stands on a form that presses the fire starters into shape. (Kathryn Scott, Special to The Colorado Sun)<\/p>\n

Cataldo said they are also buoyed by the gratification of infusing the business with their environmental ethos. They see the claims of other companies that claim to be \u201ceco-friendly,\u201d she said, and \u201cwe\u2019re like, is it actually, or are you just throwing that out there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my favorite parts about entrepreneurship is that we get to choose what we put out there,\u201d Cataldo said, \u201cand be the kind of business that we want to see when we\u2019re shopping.\u201d<\/p>\n

Type of Story: News<\/p>\n

Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is there any more depressing scenario from modern office life than approaching the breakroom coffee pot and swirling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3094],"tags":[51,5284,578,77679,3134,10688,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-189428","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-circular-economy","10":"tag-coffee","11":"tag-cu-boulder","12":"tag-entrepreneurship","13":"tag-recycling","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114694018026515755","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}