By LISA MITCHELL
Who isn’t addicted to coffee pods these days?
Those little devices are everywhere, and it’s not hard to figure out why – we’re leading incredibly busy lives, and while it’s been fun buying and trying to figure out how to operate complicated coffee machines, who has the time?
Coffee pod machines save us time and money. But they can come with a price that many of us are only just becoming aware of.
I was shocked to read that used coffee pods are becoming a serious environmental concern.
Australians are now consuming between 2.5 and 3 million coffee capsules per day. All we want is to start our day with an excellent cup of coffee that is simple to make, and that doesn’t ruin our planet.
So far, they haven’t been recyclable so we’ve been placing them in with our general rubbish, without even a second thought given to the impact. In our defence, why would we think to worry? They are so small! I myself only drink two or three really good quality cups of coffee per day – surely three little pods per day won’t be enough to damage our environment?
Sadly, our new coffee habit is threatening to do exactly that and it’s only going to get worse, as more Australians begin to use coffee pods both at home and at work. Putting this into perspective, Australians are filling an Olympic-sized swimming pool with used capsules every 14 days. By 2018, we will be all be filling an Olympic-sized swimming pool every week.
Michael Scott from the EcoCaffe Company says many Australians and environmentalists are now just waking up to the potential harm. He says, “Coffee lovers are torn between a great tasting at home coffee experience on one hand, whilst creating mountains of rubbish on the other hand. Aluminium and plastic coffee capsules are filling our landfill on a daily basis with some of them taking more than 500 years to biodegrade, if at all.”Just as an FYI, you should know that this post is sponsored by ecoCaffe. But all opinions expressed by the author are 100% authentic and written in their own words.
