Ground Alchemy’s Four Sustainable Methods to Recycling in the City
Ground Alchemy is a multi-faceted specialty coffee and food lounge with a personality and ethos that is warm, engaging, and good for the earth.
While many of us boast the coffee and food is the best in Brisbane, this small though mighty enterprise includes vintage furniture and decor, plants, and garden accessories together with custom-made candles and copper products created in the ancient traditions of an Indian village.
It’s a wide and diverse selection, yet all are connected through a shared respect for the earth’s material and an innate instinct to employ sustainable practices.
Grow - Use – Recycle: At Ground Alchemy, the alchemists haven’t missed a chance to institute a circular economy, in this case it’s all about implementing a process of grow-your-own, share with customers and recycle-on-the-premises.
1. The process commenced with the mindset of ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’ starting with Pacha Yuma Chef Dayna Wilson retaining the skins from the organic bananas she uses in her home-made juices and smoothies, placing them in a container with water and soaking them overnight.
The next day, the water now filled with vitamins, magnesium, potassium, and protein released from the skins, has transitioned into a super-drink for the plants and garden.
When Lady GG greets the plants with their super-drink, well, she says their leaves give a tiny shudder, flush full of colour and basically, in their very own plantish manner, smile and say thank you.
2. Ground Plantarium’s edible flowers are another part of the circular economy. Located at the back of the premises, there’s a micro garden full of flourishing flowers. One glance of these vividly coloured, perfectly patterned delicate petals, is an instantaneously uplifting experience. But these flowers aren’t just a pretty face, Ground alchemists take their use to another level as they pick and re-purpose the flowers as an extraordinarily beautiful garnish on a variety of Pacha Yumma dishes. These flowers say thanks in another way, you see the more you pick these magnificent flowers, the more they grow and flower for us.
It’s an awe-inspiring moment to look into the intricacies, hues and texture of petals and realise their beauty is part of an unfathomable universe and here they are, these tiny, beautiful flowers prospering in our Ground Plantarium micro urban garden.
3. If you walk, bike or drive past the front of Ground Alchemy along Merthyr Road, New Farm, you might have taken a moment to appreciate the bright orange faces of blooming marigolds or even note the bunches of parsley, basil or mint. These lovely ones are also banana water recipients. Their pale, hardy roots have settled into the rich soil in the charcoal garden box absorbing all the organic goodness and sending it on to the herbs and flowers that are gently picked and added to Pacha Yumma drinks and meals.
4. Finally, we give thanks to the worms. At the back of the premises, close to the friendly edible flowers, there’s a black compost bin that couldn’t do its job without those wriggly, giggly, fat and happy worms, munching and crunching their way through – yes, you guessed it - banana skins complimented by a vibrant selection of other skins, stems, stalks and special things that only worms love. The compost has only been there a month or so, and it takes a few months for the worms to re-package the rich and juicy scraps into soil. But the Alchemists can wait – they understand the process of re-purposing, rejuvenating and transitioning the nature of things into gold, may take a little bit of time.