The East Bay Express this past week published “Waste: The Dark Side of the New Coffee Craze.” The article looks at the newest coffee innovation, single-cup brewing. With servings pre-packaged in individual pods, it’s a new method of brewing that is touted as “no mess, no fuss.” But that convenience can come at a cost, and this article has some eye-opening calculations on what gets wasted now that millions of the single-cup brews are being used. Our Executive Director, Martin Bourque was among the experts interviewed for the piece. Here’s his take: “‘We can get to a cup of coffee dozens of different ways,’ said Martin Bourque, director of the Ecology Center in Berkeley. ‘The best way is a large volume of coffee that goes into a cup that’s washed and re-used a thousand times, and the coffee goes to compost or mushroom production. That’s best-case scenario,’ he said. ‘The worst-case scenario is these pods.'”
Head to the East Bay Express for the full article.
[Photo by Rubén Díaz Alonzo on Flickr]
