We’ve removed almost all of the plastic associated with our kitchen, so no pods for me. The few times I had pod coffee at work, I wasn’t impressed.
I adore good espresso, have spent mucho dinero on high end machines and beans to enjoy making it at home. What comes out of pods is, to me, not good espresso.
Not to sound smug, but I bought mine from amazon along with a set of reusable k-cups. I’ve never put a disposable k-cup in it.
We did the same.
The pods are recyclable #5, which my town accepts. Which non-recyclable garbage are you talking about?
In the first link of the second post is a review of coffee pods. The majority of them are non-recyclable.
You’re lucky if your town actually recycles them. My township still has us separate recyclables from garbage, but all plastics, cans (other than aluminum), glass, and paper now goes into the same big recycle bin, rather than separate ones. That’s because right now there’s no market for such recyclables and none of them actually get recycled. They get sent to landfills.
That’s the current case for most ‘recyclables’ in the nation right now, sadly. Only certain metals are profitable (scrap iron, copper, aluminum), and those go in separate bins at our recycling center.
Recycling in the US is broken
“Sixty-six percent of discarded paper and cardboard was recycled, 27 percent of glass, and 8 percent of plastics were recycled.”
We’re down to just type 1 & 2 plastics as there is no recycling of 3 or higher currently.
We got a Nespresso Vertuo Next machine. The pod selection gives you a variety of pour sizes, which is nice. I can do a tall travel cup, all the way down to a single espresso. They also provide pre-labelled/pre-paid bags to ship your used pods back to them for recycling, which is very nice.
As someone mentioned above, the espresso and coffee produced is very heavy on crema, which if you are not used to or do not prefer is worth keeping in mind.
Those are aftermarket, so to speak…all the ones produced by Keurig are #5. Though based on subsequent posts, that’s not meaningful.
I mean cleaning and maintaining a coffee grinder as the extra appliance. I don’t want to bother with it.
The coffee grinders don’t require much cleaning. We use ours daily and maybe clean it every other week?
I use Kirkland Breakfast Blend from Costco and it’s the best-tasting K-cup I have found. Also the cheapest.
I thought about it, and even weighed,one of the little cups to see how much plastic was being used. It was just under two grams. We ordered some food the other night, and the total weight of the plastic packaging was at least 50 times that much. And food containers are not recyclable here.
A disposable coffee cup can weigh 15-25 grams, so one coffee bought at a drive-through will generate as much plastic waste as 7-12 cups of Keurig coffee.
I suspect the environmental damage from coffee pods feels bad because the use of them and disposal is sort of in your face and repeated through the day, making it feel wasteful.
And sure, grinding your own coffee and using a french press will not generate plastic waste, but compared to the amount of plastic we use every day for all kinds of goods, I don’t sweat the little coffee pods. Plus, they aren’t being shipped overseas to be dumped in the ocean like other ‘recyclable’ plastics, so all they really do is take up a little landfill space and sequester a tiny bit of carbon. And we aren’t short of landfill space.
Maybe I’ve been too hard on the Pod People.
Why, here’s a blinded taste test of coffee machines including two Keurig devices. They only scored 3 out of 10 on coffee flavor - but super convenient!
here’s the best coffee we’ve found, it claims to be the world’s strongest coffee
https://www.deathwishcoffee.com/
Death Wish is # 6 in the top ten most caffeinated list, with #1 having about twice as much caffeine.
We use Nespresso, and the fact that they have a dedicated recycling facility in our country and you can drop off used capsules at their store played a role in us choosing them over, say, a drip system or some other pods. Actual studies show pods are more sustainable than people think, anyway.
For both those concerned about waste, and for those concerned about the flavor of their coffee I recommend switching to an Aeropress coffee maker. It makes a single cup of coffee in barely more time than brewing a Keurig, and the taste is far superior, and there’s no non-compostable waste. The only thing to dispose of after is a small paper disc filter and the coffee grounds.
It’s an upsidedown inferior version of a French press, isn’t it?
(Inferior because paper filters remove the crema.)
I tried both and settled on thier Kona blend as the best K-Cup I have tried. I’ve sampled it on a few friends and they agree. Thank you!
The fact that they are also recylable is a plus.