The daily habit you didn't know was destroying your children's future.

Hi. My name is Lauren Williamson, and I’m addicted to coffee.

There, I said it. Acceptance is the first step towards recovery, right?

But let’s be real. It’s not an addiction I’ll be giving up any time soon.

Although maths was never my strong point in school (my old teachers would say that’s an understatement) I recently did a few calculations about my coffee consumption.

While my brain didn’t thank me for the exertion, my wallet and the environment certainly did.

I figured out that I am using around three pods a day, every day of the year. Subtract a few coffee-free days and add a few double strength pick-me-ups here and there and I’m using around 1,000 pods a year.

Now, using a personal coffee machine has certainly reduced the cost of my habit but there was one thing I hadn’t really considered before- the environmental impact of my coffee consumption.

I am one of more than one million households in Australia that have a coffee pod machine.

Just as an FYI, you should know that is an advertorial for ecoCaffe. But all opinions expressed by the author are 100% authentic and written in their own words.

Australians consume up to 3 million coffee capsules per day on average – enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool every 14 days. These aluminium capsules can take 150 years to biodegrade with plastic capsules taking anywhere near 500 years to break down.

That means my rubbish will still be around when my great-great-great-great grandkids come along. And that’s scary.

I do everything in my power to lessen my impact on the environment: I recycle, I walk to work and I use solar energy. Why shouldn’t my coffee addiction reflect that as well?

So I made sure it did. I found ecoCaffe, which is the exclusive distributor for Ethical Coffee Company in Australia.

Their coffee pods are 100% certified biodegradable and compostable, and even the packaging is made from biodegradable vegetable content.

And to satisfy the coffee obsessed, like myself, there is absolutely no compromise on taste. My coffees are still bloody delicious and I wish it was feasible to have something drip-feeding me Ethical Coffee Company flat whites 24/7.

With a little extra reading I found out that the Ethical Coffee Company capsule is one of the only capsules on the market that is entirely sealed and closed. This allows an extraction under high pressure, reproducing the “Italian Barista” style of extraction.

Having been a barista for seven years I know that is a VERY good thing for my taste buds.

So now I’m helping the environment, I’m still drinking delicious coffee and I didn’t even have to get a new machine. The pods are compatible with my Nespresso one.

And my addiction to coffee is only rivalled by my addiction to online shopping. Which is lucky because you can buy these pods online.

If you’re the kind of person whose ears prick up at the sound of ‘deal’ (me, totally me) EcoCaffe is offering an exclusive deal for Mamamia readers. You can purchase a trial pack of any two sleeves with a flat shipping cost of $7.70.  Or free freight on any order of 5 sleeves or more. Just use the CODE: MMFREE2015 at checkout. Visit the ecoCaffe online store by clicking here.

So, there is absolutely no reason not to try these, I love them and I think you will too.

Enjoy.

ecoCaffe is the exclusive distributor for Ethical Coffee Company in Australia, maker of the world’s only genuine alternative to Nespresso® with the added benefit of being a biodegradable capsule.  Learn more at  www.ecocaffe.com.au