Mission Lazarus and San Lazaro Coffee Farm have approached the Collaboratory with some obstacles in their coffee processing. The farm is looking to increase production and mitigate the flow of untreated effluent from cherry and bean processing into the local environment. Specifically, the team and San Lazaro hope to reduce the acidity and BOD of water leaving the farm and flowing in the La Botija Mountains, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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The San Lazaro Coffee Farm in Honduras grows and processes coffee beans using the wet milling processing system. This results in the production of thousands of gallons of effluent daily. As they scale up from processing 25,000 lbs. of dry beans annually to a goal of 100,000 lbs. of dry beans annually, and seek to be an example to local farmers, their production of this effluent has become an increasingly large challenge to deal with. This effluent is currently discharged directly into the environment despite its acidic pH and elevated levels of BOD and phosphorous. To solve this problem, San Lazaro and Mission Lazarus have partnered with the CPWT Team to research, design, and build a simple and effective wastewater treatment system to mitigate the negative effects of the effluent water on the local environment.