• Geek_King@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I also second social media, but I need to make another suggestion it’d be Keurigs k-cups. So much plastic waste for the barest level of convenience.

    • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Even the creator of the K-cup said he regretted creating it because of the environmental impact.

        • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Actually, the inventor of the Keurig coffee pod system, John Sylvan, sold his ownership of the product for $50,000 in 1997. 7 years after founding the company and before single-serve coffee really took off.

    • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Thank you for beating me to mention this.

      K-cups are really amazinlgy bad. And it’s not like there aren’t much better solutions available. Philips has those fully bio-degradable pads, a local store now sells a type of coffee maker that uses just the coffee powder in balls where the outer shell is compressed grounds that is cracked open to get to the powder inside.

      But no, Keurig and their fucking oceans of plastic waste.

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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        4 months ago

        Nespresso has ones that are fully metal, and so can be shredded and separated by mass to get scrap aluminum and prime compost fodder. They accept them back by mail.

    • Hugh_Jeggs@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      What the hell is a K-cup, it sounds like something you shove up your vaj

      • Geek_King@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        It’s a small plastic cup full of ground coffee, Kuerig machines use them. They generated a ton of plastic waste, since each k-cup was a single use.

        • kingthrillgore@lemmy.ml
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          4 months ago

          There was great progress in compostable K-Cups from other vendors. And then Keurig did the DRM thing with the UV ink. So they literally made everything worse trying to keep their market reach.

          I threw mine out and went back to a french press. Straight into compost, and the coffee tastes better.

        • shalafi@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          And so is every Coke bottle with 5 times the plastic. And so is every store-bought coffee. Yet… silence. 🦗🦗🦗

          What about bottles? Far more energy requires to melt and pour glass. No one says a word about single use.

          Never found a K-cup on the beach or trail, but I pack plastic bags to haul trash and sometimes load 2 or 3.

          • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Yet… silence.

            Imagine never reading any news or discussions about environmental impact, but coming in here trying to defend Keurig by doing full whataboutism.

    • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      Keurigs are actually pretty convenient when you’re only making one cup. The trick is to get one of the reusable filters and just use whatever coffee you like.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Yes, it’s a waste, but the whole thing was blown way the hell out of proportion.

      I hike, kayak, canoe, whatever, all over the place. Every plastic bottle I pick up contains, what, 5 times the plastic? I pick up a LOT. And nobody thinks twice or raises a fuss.

      We use a Keurig, but either with plastic refill cups or paper bags my wife brings home from the hotel.

      • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
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        4 months ago

        A lot of stuff marked as recyclable is technically recyclable but cost prohibitive to do so. I don’t know what type of plastic these cups are, but when they claim recyclable, it should specify percent actually being recycled.

        I’m liking aldi at the moment. They list all the separate parts of packaging for me and how it can be disposed. I hope its just a step to moving more to biodegradable rather than recyclable.

          • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
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            4 months ago

            Again, possible to recycle does not mean they are actually recycled or economic to recycle. Many things are possible to recycle. Most are not. If their form factor or material makes them costly to recycle, they wont be. You say they are cheap. What cost to make new? What cost to collect, sort and recycle?

            100% biodegradable would be better. With no plastic.

      • AlternateRoute@lemmy.ca
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        4 months ago

        To be used in most recycling programs you would need to fully remove the foil lid, and rinse out every k-cup before depositing them in recycling.

    • DaCrazyJamez@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      Strong dissagree. I am barely functional pre-caffeine in the early morning. A Keurig is about as much mental energy as I can muster to operate. It is a godsend to me on day I work early.

      • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I think the problem is not in pod-based single-serving coffee machines. Those are common, and well-loved for a reason.

        But there are easily available alternatives that do the exact same thing without requiring so much plastic, namely Senseo coffee pads (they’re grounds in coffee filter paper) or CoffeeB and its compressed coffee grounds balls (so it’s all just coffee ground, both the coffee and the pod). Probably a fair few more I don’t know about personally.

        Possibly even Nestle with their Nescafe pods. They’re aluminium but some countries achieve effectively 100% recycling on that, then the only issue is the filter membrane they place inside and I don’t know whether that is easily separated during recycling or not.