Let us assume you are happy drinking pre-grinded coffee that is preserved in a plastic capsule. And let us assume that the aluminum lid, when exposed to hot temperatures has no damaging health effects to your body. What we cannot turn our backs on is the damage to the environment these capsules are causing.
Green Mountain's KEURIG "K-cups" are widely popular in north America. Almost 40% of Canadians own a a KEURIG machine.
"If you took last year's production of K-Cups, which was almost 10 billion, and you were to take them and line them up end to end like this, they would encircle the globe more than twelve times at the equator," Murray Carpenter, the author of Caffeinated: How Our Daily Habit Helps, Hurts, and Hooks Us, told CBC's The National in a 2015 interview.
John Sylvan, the Boston based creator regrets creating K-Cups not only because of it’s high cost but because it is non-recyclable. "I don't have one, I find them rather expensive per cup... I don't really know why people have them in their house."
The city of Hamburg has been the first to put a ban on pod coffees due to the damage it is causing the environment. "These portion packs cause unnecessary resource consumption and waste generation, and often contain polluting aluminum," said a guide accompanying the new policy. Jens Kerstan, the senator for the Hamburg Ministry for Environment and Energy added "that is part of our plan to base our public spending much more on ecological aspects,"..."We want to avoid spending public money on products that are bad for environment.
Many are going online with the hope of raising awareness about this issue. For example a video called "Kill the K-Cup" produced by Halifax-based Egg Studios went viral when featuring murderous monsters made of discarded K-Cups.
And even if you do not care about the environment and the future of your children (and you should by the way), you must at least care about the taste of your coffee. Fresh coffee is not hard to find and prepare anymore.
While preserving this precious land we have been granted, We believe that everyone deserves a high quality cup of coffee without the hassle, time and resources wasted frothing milk, grinding beans, heating and filtering water, cleaning up etc, etc, etc... And this is exactly why we are passionate and dedicated about the solutions we offer here at Insta Barista.
One cup for you and one for the planet. Salute!
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Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 5W1
