An interdisciplinary Kansas State University research group is turning garbage into gourmet food.The researchers are taking used coffee grounds from a campus coffee shop and using them as compost to cultivate gourmet mushrooms at the K-State Student Farm. By composting alone, 50 pounds a week — or about 30 percent of the coffee shop’s total waste — has been diverted from landfills.Natalie Mladenov, assistant professor of civil engineering, and Rhonda Janke, associate professor of horticulture, forestry and recreation resources, are the faculty leaders of the project, which also involves students in civil engineering, plant pathology, agronomy, geography, and park management and conservation.“The goal of the project is to demonstrate our potential at Kansas State University to initiate a successful closed-loop recycling and composting program that diverts waste from landfills and produce a beneficial product,” Mladenov said.While developing the compost program, the researchers made an important discovery: coffee grounds are a great compost for cultivating mushrooms, particularly gourmet mushrooms, such as oyster, shiitake and reishi. The U.S. gets nearly 45 percent of mushrooms from China, and there is a need for more local suppliers of gourmet mushrooms, said Kaley Oldani, master’s student in civil engineering, Dublin, California, and the student leader for the project.Oldani and other student team members recently traveled to Washington, D.C., to showcase their project at the EPA’s 10th annual National Sustainable Design Expo for the People, Prosperity and the Planet competition.