Takeaway coffee cups not recyclable

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Takeaway coffee cups not recyclable
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Downsizer Forum Index -> Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

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Green Rosie

Joined: 13 May 2007
Posts: 10498
Location: Calvados, France

Posted: Fri Jul 29, 16 6:38 am Post subject: Takeaway coffee cups not recyclable
It looks like companies such as Costa and Starbucks have been misleading us with their cups - how many people thought they were recyclable? I certainly did and until recently Costa even had the Mï¿½bius Loop symbol on them. The waste mountain of coffee cups

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon

Posted: Fri Jul 29, 16 2:32 pm Post subject:
Those coffee pod things pull the same trick of saying 'recyclable' which is technically true but pretty much never happens because of the difficulty of separating the component parts.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45674
Location: Essex

Posted: Fri Jul 29, 16 2:34 pm Post subject:
The coffee pods should be illegal too, truly mental

Green Rosie

Joined: 13 May 2007
Posts: 10498
Location: Calvados, France

Posted: Fri Jul 29, 16 3:13 pm Post subject:

Grrrrr - coffee pods - AWFUL things and 9.8 billion were used in 2104 with only a tiny percentage recycled. I hadn't realised just how many there are on the market as normally I just walk straight past that part of the coffee aisle however today I did stop to look ... and for goodness sake there was even a pod for sale to make a cup of Earl Grey tea.

I got into rather an argument recently with someone of FB about coffee pods and she moaned she couldn't possibly survive without her nespresso coffee every day and if she didn't have it she would simply have to drive to town to have a Costa coffee

It would seem the big coffee producers have succeeded in making us think that life without either a coffee pod or from a cardboard cup is simply impossible. I despair.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46235
Location: yes

Posted: Fri Jul 29, 16 4:38 pm Post subject:
i dont even need a spoon for coffee minimum is stainless steel cup,fuel,fire starter, water,coffee

gz

Joined: 23 Jan 2009
Posts: 8939
Location: Ayrshire, Scotland

Posted: Fri Jul 29, 16 8:55 pm Post subject:
they are recyclable...when unused...

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon

Posted: Fri Jul 29, 16 10:09 pm Post subject:
Maybe the hipsters will save us all. Boy Wonder despises the pods and refuses to drink coffee from 'cardboard' cups.

Green Rosie

Joined: 13 May 2007
Posts: 10498
Location: Calvados, France

Posted: Sat Jul 30, 16 6:50 am Post subject:
Of our two boys one totally refuses to drink coffee or tea and the other only likes a proper espresso from a proper cup

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28238
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Sat Jul 30, 16 7:01 am Post subject:
Pods are depressing, that they took off shows how thin peoples attitudes on recycling are

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15985

Posted: Sat Jul 30, 16 7:50 am Post subject:
My DIL has a device that uses a reusable bit instead of the pod. The only waste is the coffee grounds, but I understand they are now saving those for my compost heap. They are in a flat so don't have a compost bin of their own. I will find out what the thing is called and post here.

Green Rosie

Joined: 13 May 2007
Posts: 10498
Location: Calvados, France

Posted: Sat Jul 30, 16 8:21 am Post subject:

jema wrote:

Pods are depressing, that they took off shows how thin peoples attitudes on recycling are

And also how they want everything instantly and how each new product like this further distances people from real food/drinks

Woo

Joined: 19 Sep 2011
Posts: 787
Location: Mayenne, Pays de Loire

Posted: Sat Jul 30, 16 8:24 am Post subject:

I saw HFW on the bbc the other night talking about this.( didn't know he had moved channels)
I liked the idea of the discount for bringing your own cup!
instead of calling your name they could call, "chipped snoopy!"

what a waste. I didn't realise they couldn't be recycled. I have shared the info with oldest who got a taste for coffee on a school trip to Germany. told him he could only have it it in a proper cup from now on!

Green Rosie

Joined: 13 May 2007
Posts: 10498
Location: Calvados, France

Posted: Sat Jul 30, 16 8:28 am Post subject:

Mistress Rose wrote:

My DIL has a device that uses a reusable bit instead of the pod. The only waste is the coffee grounds, but I understand they are now saving those for my compost heap. They are in a flat so don't have a compost bin of their own. I will find out what the thing is called and post here.

From Explain that stuff - is this maybe what she is using?

Quote:

Finally, most single-serve machines are anything but environmentally friendly. You're wasting a plastic pod, metal foil, and filter paper with every single cup of coffee you make. That might not sound significant until you consider that Keurigï¿½, the market-leading US brand, sells about 10 billion of its K-Cupï¿½ pods every year! There are some environmentally friendly pod systems, however; Nespresso pods are made of easily recyclable aluminum, for example, which sounds great. The only trouble is, there's a big difference between "recyclable" and "actually recycled": Keurig's "100 percent recyclable" pods have to be split and separated into paper, metal, and plastic for effective recycling, so most people are likely to just throw them away. A classic example of greenwash? If green credentials matter to you, check out companies such as Kienna Coffee, which makes a plastic adapter for Keurig brewers that take compostable and biodegradable pods. You can reuse the adapter and throw away the coffee!

Green Rosie

Joined: 13 May 2007
Posts: 10498
Location: Calvados, France

Posted: Sat Jul 30, 16 8:32 am Post subject:

Woo wrote:

I liked the idea of the discount for bringing your own cup!
instead of calling your name they could call, "chipped snoopy!"

I posted how unhappy I was about the cups not being recyclable on Costa and Starbucks FB pages. No reply from Starbucks but Costa gave me some corporate blurb about how they are looking to make them recyclable at some time in the future and offered the "bring your own" discount. Interestingly, when I asked what their time-scale was for making the cups recyclable and how many people actually brought their own cup all I got was deadly silence.

Woo

Joined: 19 Sep 2011
Posts: 787
Location: Mayenne, Pays de Loire

Posted: Sat Jul 30, 16 8:37 am Post subject:
We have a proper coffee percolator thingy that goes on the stove. the grounds go into compost or round the heather plants. My SIL gave us her fancy Jura coffee machine when she brought a nespresso . it does the works but is sat waiting to go to Ebay as its just too mad for words, grinding, boiling, steaming milk. and you only get a few sips in the cup.

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