I think it’s been almost 2 years of absolute silence from yours truly, and finally I have decided to restart my blogging. A lot has happened in these 2 years but I won’t get unto the details just yet.
What made me want to come back had actually something to do with a Facebook post about recycling, and then I remembered I liked to write about this stuff and share with the world different things and tricks that could potentially help save the planet… Yes, I do like to think that the little bit I do helps save the planet.
So here it is… As opposed to the idea of owning one of these as I’ve been, I caved when my SO expressed the wish of having one for his birthday and I think Christmas…. I’m talking about a Keurig and Nespresso machine. Don’t get me wrong, they make great coffee…. but with that great coffee comes a whole bunch of waste. For both…
Nespresso at least collects the used coffee pods at the store. If you don’t want to go to the store to drop them off you can empty them yourself and throw them in the recycling bin.
The other great option is a recycling program with Terracycle. Here’s the link:
http://www.terracycle.ca/en-CA/brigades.html
And they don’t only pick up the Nespresso pods but a whole bunch of other things. It’s great!
Now, as to Keurig…. the only recycling program I found was where you had to pay for the pick up….
So I therefore resorted to recycling the pods myself.
Of course, the best thing would be to use the reusable filter that came with the machine. It’s not only less wastefull but you get to put whatever coffee flavor you want. But if you do fall in love with the coffee in the pods, and feel remotely environmentally conscious, then recycling the pods is in order…
We have two kinds, one is slightly less wastefull than the other becsuse it has less surrounding plastic….
So for the less wastefull one you can just cut the filter and toss it in the composter.
The other one is a little more time consuming, so I end up collecting a few before I decide to compost them.
So obviously you have to remove the aluminum foil on top.
Then you empty the coffee, cut the filter out (yes that gets composted as well) and rinse and recycle the plastic pod.
Now why would you go through all that trouble you say? Because of this…
So imagine that if there’s islands of plastic in our ocean, these pods only add to the disaster.
For further reading, I suggest this page.
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2014/03/coffee-k-cups-green-mountain-polystyrene-plastic
And there we go… saving the planet one pod at a time.
Ana Banana
The Banana Chronicles 