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Keurig Spends 10 Years Developing A Recyclable Coffee Cup (boston.com)
Last year Keurig Green Mountain sold over 9 billion single servings of its coffee in plastic "K-Cups" -- none of which could be recycled. "Placed end to end, the pods sold in a year would circle the globe roughly 10 times," reports the New York Times News Service, noting the company spent the last 10 years developing a backwards-compatible cup that could actually be recycled. In the mid-1990s, "Keurig began buying the containers -- made from a blend of plastic that is tough to recycle -- in bulk, never expecting that it would one day sell billions a year. But because Keurig machines were designed specifically for the pods, changing course soon seemed virtually impossible." One environmental advocate complained "There are a lot of ways to make coffee that don't use so much packaging. Making coffee wasn't something that needed to be reinvented." But the company may still face criticism because their new cups can be recycled -- but not composted.
Funny, because every time I get coffee from one of those little cups it taste like it's already been composted.
Design a new machine. People will eventually switch over, especially the vocal save-the-planet types.
They don't sell current machines, what good would a new one do?
Oh, excuse me, the 2.0 crap? Yea, not gonna buy a DRM coffee machine.
So this doesn't really help, since I'm not switching from the original.
These k-cup compatible pods are ~90% biodegradable. Keurig should license their design post haste.
The problem with a new machine is the competition for shelf space. The new cups would have to be placed alongside the existing cups until enough people made the switch that you wouldn't take a large financial hit.
There are probably a lot of people who sunk the money into the old machine that simply won't be interested in buying the new one should they be forced into another coffee maker purchase. This also has to be a consideration in the process because they make quite a lot from selling the coffee. It is likely cheaper to purchase a drip coffee maker and throw half a pot or more away once you consider the costs of the machines and coffee.
It might surprise some hardcore environmentalists that using paper cups, or just using more paper on anything else, might be more environment friendly than you might imagine. (The following facts might be considered as flamebait again but please read on with patient before you mod.)
Papers are not made from cutting wood in rain forest anymore (some furniture, on the other hand, still are). 95% of the raw materials in paper are coming from trees, and these trees are carefully planned to grow and harvest. Various "Tree Funds" were raised every 10-15 years for raising money in building such tree farms.
Unfortunately, these "Tree Funds" are very sensitive to market. When there are less demand in papers, these funds would diminish, and in turn less tree farms would be built. Less tree farms, less trees, less oxygen-producers, more carbon dioxide, more severe the green house effect and so forth.
Encouraging paper-saving would probably lead to more green house gases. The irony...
There are inserts that fit the Keurigs that you can fill with your own ground coffee, then empty after it's brewed. I'd love to use them, it'd give me a wider variety of coffees. The only problem is that none of them seal properly, water and grounds come out the top and make a mess and the leakage interferes with the brewing. If Keurig really wanted to solve the problem, put the research into modifying the MyK-Cup so it seals properly and the water flows through the grounds rather than off the top and through the open mesh screen.
http://www.amazon.com/Ekobrew-...
Someone came up with the idea of a refillable K-Cup
You really want to do something about the "Problem" there you go. Otherwise you can buy "Recyclable" K-Cups that never will be.
Me I just use these things
http://www.amazon.com/Braun-Pe...
Damned if I am going to pay two bucks a cup when all is said and done for coffee I make myself.
Bialetti Moka Express:
Let's not be such eager shills for Keurig's attempts to fix up its image, shall we? Their priority isn't doing good for the environment or the customer, it's doing whatever it takes to makes customers think that they're doing good for the environment -- so that they recover their sales revenues after the customer-fucking DRM attempt with Keurig 2.0 that got them tarred and feathered.
So, people who say they "care about the planet" insist on drinking a beverage made from beans grown thousands of miles away, but the real problem is the way they make their beverage, after those beans are shipped thousands of miles to them...?
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Umm... Most coffee makers of the drip variety actually have this neat invention where they have lines on the side. If you use those lines and do a little bit of math - you won't have to make a whole pot of coffee. It's a fairly new technology, called "measurement." I'm sure someone will help you out if you need it. You might be able to find a book at the library.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
This is what my wife does. She won a Keurig and began using (and tossing away) a ton of those pods. Then, she realized she could buy a reusable pod (2 actually since they came together), buy the coffee she likes in bulk, and make it just the way she likes it. It takes slightly longer (cleaning out the pod and filling it up takes a minute at most) but the result is coffee that she likes more, which is less expensive, and which results in less waste clogging up our landfills. It's a win all around (except for the profits for the companies that sell one-time-then-trash-it pods).
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.