Coffee Capsule Ban: The First City In The World To Ban Coffee Capsules
Single-use coffee capsules have taken the coffee world by storm! It’s an affordable luxury to have in your home, or even in your own office. But have we really thought his one through? It seems there may be more of a problem with single-use coffee capsules than we thought – sciencealert.com reported that Hamburg, a German city, has taken the first step towards banning the use of single-use coffee pods.
Coffee Pods: The Downside
Apart from being limited to low-usage areas, the coffee pods seem to be the real problem here. See, the majority of pods comprise of around 6g of pre-ground coffee and 3g of packaging. The plastic used in this packaging is combined with aluminium, making recycling almost impossible.
Quoted from an article at Science Alert – “There’s a statistic floating around that if you collected all the single-use coffee pods sold by market leader Keurig in a year and lined them up end-to-end, you’d have enough to circle the globe 12 times over. And the worst part? Those little cups are made from a mixture of plastic and aluminium, which means most recycling plants in the world don’t have the facilities to recycle them properly. They’re an incredibly damaging trend that we’ll be cleaning up for decades to come, and that’s why the German city of Hamburg just became the first in the world to ban single-use coffee pods from all government-run buildings.”
Coffee Pods: Are They Worth It?
Using your favourite coffee pods machine at home is not going to have a fraction of the impact a large corporation or government-facility would. The amounts of pods used at home is almost insignificant – even if you’re having 2 – 4 per day. However, those using this machine for larger groups are the culprits. It seems to be a good investment and a cost-effective way to provide staff with “quality” coffee, but so many misconceptions need to be cleared up. Have a look at our cost comparison of coffee capsule machines VS bean-to-cup coffee. If we’re playing open cards – while capsule coffee may be highly convenient – it will never provide you with the coffee quality, freshness and taste a fresh bean would. Also, in the long run, capsules may end up costing you more than the machine is worth. So, if you are a larger environment, consider alternative and more cost-effective options.
What is your opinion? Do you think coffee pods are harmless, or are we onto something by invoking a ban on single-use capsules?
