February 22, 2007

How to Green Your Single Serve Coffee

Coffee Tea Green

We recently read a pretty amazing guide at Treehugger about greening up your coffee and tea consumption. Did you know that coffee is the world’s most commonly traded commodity after crude oil, but what about single serve coffee? Well, the single serve coffee category is growing, and because of the packaging and other factors, single serve coffee might not be seen as green as drinking regular coffee, but it can be.

One of the big factors when using single serve coffee at work or home - get your own mug. Owning your own mug over the course of the year can be a huge contribution to using less paper. Recently we created a mark for every paper cup we would have used, had we not had a coffee mug at our desk - average weekly number? We would have used 47 paper cups every week for a total of 188 per month and a total of 2,256 per year. Ouch.

Next, drink Fair Trade coffee. If you own a Keurig Elite B40 Brewer, Keurig B50, Keurig Special Edition Ultra Elite B60, or the Keurig B70 Brewer you can purchase many Fair Trade and Organic K Cups from Green Mountain Coffee. You can also get many Fair Trade coffee pods from various online vendors as well.

One of the other tips we like which can make K Cups and Coffee pods more eco-friendly? Compost the roast. You can get a Ceramic Compost Crock that sits on your kitchen countertop, and put those coffee grounds from used K Cups and coffee pods into it. Composting is a great way to get yummy good stuff to put in your house plants and also garden.

One last good idea from Treehugger? Give the gift of any of the above. See a co-worker drinking out of paper cups? Get them a mug. Want to give the best gifts on the holidays? Give Fair Trade and Organic coffees. Every little bit counts, and you can feel better each day knowing that your coffee isn't costing the planet more than it should.

Use a Sandwich or Single Serve Coffee to Give Thoughtful Answers - Mar 14, 2008
How to Make Espresso Souffle - Feb 08, 2008
Does the Breville BKC600XL Gourmet Single Cup Brewer work with the Perfect Pod Holster? - Jan 09, 2008

Came straight to this page? Visit Single Serve Coffee for all the latest news.

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Posted by Jay Brewer at February 22, 2007 8:22 AM

Comments

While I love my Keurig, what's still unfortunate is that their K-Cups aren't recyclable. I asked GMRC about this and was glad to hear that they are looking into ways to making the K-Cups more eco-friendly. Biodegradable K-Cups would be great!
Posted by: Maria at February 22, 2007 12:47 PM

One of the first things I bought after I got my Keurig was the My K-Cup filter. Since I bought the machine at Costco, I got a bunch of K-Cups with it, but it really bugged me every time I threw yet another plastic container away. Yeah, the filter is a bit more muss and fuss, but it's worth the peace of mind.
Posted by: Marci at February 26, 2007 4:53 AM

I'm glad they're looking, as maria says, at greener K-Cups but, and I make no friends saying this on SSC.com - single serve by its very nature can never a truely green way to drink good coffee. The article above is similar to one saying "how to make your 6 litre sports car greener". The answer is don't own one.
Posted by: Alex at September 5, 2007 10:04 AM