Can a Keurig be Green?
I admit it. I get sucked into watching QVC now and then and once in a while, I get thisclose to buying something from the shopping channel. In the years I’ve been flipping channels and stopped to see what was being showcased, the two things I’ve purchased have been a Junior’s Cheesecake and this ingenious invention: The Drop Stop seat filler for the car. Click on the link to see what I mean.
Anyway, this past weekend, QVC ran a Today’s Special Value for the Keurig single-cup coffee maker. These coffee makers seem to be all the rage because all you do is pop in a plastic pod, close the lid, push a button and voila! Your own perfect cup of coffee, tea, hot chocolate or cider. Fresh, instant and no waste. Well, almost zero waste: those plastic pods pop out and go—you guessed it—right into the trash. Millions of these pods go into the trash to go sit—forever–inside a landfill. It’s such a conundrum, the New York Times even did a feature piece about.
So, I sat there and watched and kept looking at the Keurig expert open the machine, pop in a plastic pod, brew a cup of coffee, pop open the machine and discreetly toss the plastic pod under the table. Away, I thought. Away into the trash. Away into the landfill. Away to never be thought of again. I decided my french press at home, which I would put freshly ground coffee beans inside, brew hot water on the stove, pour the water into the press, wait for it to seep, plunge, and then pour myself a cup of coffee would simply be my 25 minute ritual every morning to get the very best cup of coffee possible. Hmm…25…minutes…each…morning. Has to be a better way….
And then the QVC host mentioned this: you also get the My K-Cup insert with your purchase. In other words, instead of using one of the plastic pods of coffee you buy at the store, you can grind your own beans, fill up this reusable insert, and brew your own cup using the fast, time-saving machine. So, hold on… you might have me here, folks.
My initial thought was that the My K-Cup Insert has to be disappointing. Didn’t I hear that these refillable pods leaked or left grinds in your coffee or just were plain difficult to use?
But the reviews I’m finding online seem to praise the My K-Cups. Just grind, fill and go. In fact, I could buy a few of the My K-Cups and pre-fill them when I have guests or family visiting. They rinse our clean and you can use them over and over again. The best part? I’m not wasting coffee each morning when I make a giant vat of pressed coffee.
So, my faithful Daily Danny readers: Should I get the Keurig coffee machine with the My K-Cup refill inserts and promise to never, ever for as long as I live to ever buy a package of the plastic pre-filled disposable pods?
Yes, this is the type of conundrum I’m having today. And in my drama-filled world, I’ll take it.
I am so glad to hear this because that’s exactly what I thought when I kept hearing people rave about the Keurig…all those plastic cups sitting in a landfill for eons.
I’ll have to pass the word! Thanks for sharing!
25 minutes? I make French Press every morning and it’s 10 minutes max. Boil the water and grind the beans while it heats: 4-5 minutes. Steep grounds: 4 minutes (the time recommended by all coffee geeks).
I think the My K-cups are a good solution to your dilemma. Go for it!
i say get it!! saves on time and uses less energy!
I love the idea of the single cup coffee machine.
But for me there’s another issue, I avoid anything hot in plastic (microwaving food in plastic, placing hot food on plastic plates, or hot beverages in plastic). Coffee makers like the Keurig have a lot of their flowpath in plastic. The disposable k-cups really bother me because they are made out of that flimsy plastic and I worry about leaching while the high pressure, hot water is in them. In general, high pressure and hot temperature causes things to go into solution – this is how mineral deposits are made in the earth, it can be how we clean our house (steam cleaning), and it concerns me with plastic in contact with things I drink. The My K-Cup holder seems to be made of a little higher quality plastic, but I’m not sure about that plastic mesh.
I’ll stick with my french press and mocha plots, which brew in glass, and metal, respectively. But if they made a metal K-Cup with a Keurig that has a metal flowpath I’d be on board in an instant!
i’m on the fence … you had me at the reusable filter, saw it in Bed, Bath and Beyond this past weekend. …. but all the plastic concerns me, too. I wonder why the pods, when emptied, aren’t recyclable?
Sounds like you already have the best coffee-maker, because you are not using one made with plastic. Stick with what you have, and avoid the BPA issue that way. Better for Mother Earth and your body.
No, stay with what you have
Ahhh, think of all the embodied energy in that appliance. What you have works, don’t, well, you-know with it. (Really, that should be tattooed on us at birth.) As to having guests, leaving them with the French Press means they get to choose their coffee strength. Why are we all about pushing buttons?? Or, when crowds descend, buy unbleached paper cone filters and a ceramic drip holder (thrift store or gasp!new) and let people make their own. The paper is renewable, the clean-up won’t drive you crazy as it can all go in the compost and you won’t be buying a plastic, limited life, single-purpose appliance.
That is amazingggg! Totally get it! What a time saver!
Please just say no to appliances like these single cup coffee makers. Who really NEEDS them? The French press makes terrific coffee in no time. And while you’re waiting for it to brew, maybe you’ll have another great green idea to share with us on your blog.
Have to admit I love my Keurig. It’s great for when hubby wants 1 cup of regular coffee and I want a cup of decaf. The My K-cup is good but it’s a pain if you want to make more than 1 cup of coffee as you have to clean it out between uses.
And I know the disposable K-cups go against all that is good and green but you CAN rip the top off, pull the filter and coffee out and throw it in your compost pile, and then recycle the plastic part. Better than throwing it into the trash!
Hmmmm, a dilemma indeed! At first I also thought you should go for it. But I am weird about the plastic issue too. I’d say it probably isn’t worth it.
Rebecca
been using a Keurig for nigh on 4 years now, and have found the my k-cup works exceptionally well, and you can make flavored coffee, or tea, or hot chocolate. I do not like strong coffee and by making it in the my k-cup I can make it to my taste and not the manufacturers. Go for my man, you will love it, BUT, get one with at least a 60 oz reservoir or you will spend all your time filling and waiting. trust me.
I also love my Keurig I hated cleaning out the coffee maker. i also drink a lot more coffee now and each cup is fresh. I dont have the refillable thing henc the thought of cleaning that out would also drive me nuts.. If my house was burning down i would grab my Keurig and run…. Get one you will wonder what took you so long..
I drink coffee like there’s no tomorrow and I’ve never bought a disposable coffee filter in my life. When I was single I used a small french press. Later when I was gifted a nice automatic coffee maker, the first purchase I made was a reusable gold coffee filter. I’ve been using a reusable coffee filter in every coffee maker I’ve had ever since. I’m very picky about the quality of my beans and brewed coffee because life’s too short to drink bad coffee. My reusable filter works great! So I imagine the reusable K cup would work just as well.
I have one and love it! It’s much less expensive then buying the little plastic k-cups and i can make a cup of whatever coffee i please. After brewing my coffee, the grounds can be added to the compost pile or used as fertilizer for my plants! Get one!
No. You also need to think of what you’ll do with your old french press, and then when the Keurig breaks down eventually, where will it go? Plus there’s all that packaging for the machine in the first place. It’s always better NOT to buy something new, I think.
…but then, I’m a tea drinker myself. Kettle on the stove, teabags into the compost every day.
… and another thought, when the power goes out, you won’t get your coffee.
We were just talking about this the other day. Thanks for the eco-friendly idea
Another benefit to doing this and having it be eco-friendly and such, is that it would be a little more expensive that just a french press. If it is more expensive, then there is a greater chance that it one will consume a little less, in an effort to making it worth while to buy the machine.
And less consumption is almost the holy grail of eco-friendliness
Go ahead and buy the coffee maker but be sure to get the little attachment for making your own coffee. I use one every single day and I no longer have all of those little cups to go in the trash. I’ve never had grounds in my coffee if I load it right. It works wonderfully. Now, I do have quite a few of those little cups left that I have been trying to decide what to do with. I can’t use them for paint on my crafts or anything because they have a hole in them. So, what can I do to repurpose those little cups? I’m very crafty and love to repurpose things but this one has me baffled.
Gayle
Abilene, TX
gaylememories(at)sbcglobal(dot)net
Buy the Keurig! I have it and I love it. I make my coffee every morning with the filter for using my own coffee. No grounds in the coffee and it tastes great. The best thing is that you can make your own custom mix or drink what you already like.
I found the BEST way to deal with morning coffee years ago. Cold Brew it. In a gallon container,like a plastic or glass jar or pitcher, dump in half a # of ground coffee, fill the container with cold water, stir it and then let it sit on the counter for a day. Stir it again after about 6 hours. Minimum of 12 hours later, strain the mixture through a mesh basket type strainer lined with a paper towel and another, smaller wire mesh strainer on top.I store the coffee concentrate in two old wine bottles in the fridge. To make a cup, I fill my coffee cup 3/4 with coffee and1/4 with milk, microwave for 2.5 minutes. This method is NEVER bitter cause you’re not cooking the grounds. And it’s easy to dump the cold grounds all over the garden. I use a coffee/chicory blend normally, but I’ve also used French roast. One batch usually last about a week and is fresh the whole time.A fresh cup is only 2.5 minutes away 24/7.
The refillable insert works great & this keeps me from drinking a whole pot at a time.
I, too, think the one-use container is wasteful. However, there are ways to upcycle them. There is a non-profit in Arizona, Treasures 4 Teachers (http://www.treasures4teachers.org/), that gathers recyclable materials/items and provides them to teachers. These one-use cups could be an easy-to-store math manipulative. Kids could count use them for counting; break them down by color and do percentages and fractions; etc. Talk to your local schools to see what they can use.
Currently, my sister-in-law and her friends save and donate the caps from their water bottles, my brother’s company donates hard plastic computer chip packaging, etc. for T4T. T4T collects reusable books, office and school supplies, egg and oatmeal cartons, crafting materials, etc.—most anything that can be reused—and provides them to member teachers for next to nothing (I think a “shopping” trip is $5 for whatever you pick up that trip), a great thing when education funding gets cut and teachers are spending their own money for supplies.
If there isn’t a similar organization in your area, I’m sure you could send some of your recycles there. It may be a cost to you, but you’d be helping a great organization and you would be recycling the cups (or whatever) you’d just be throwing away. Even better, talk to them about how to start a T4T in your area. Talk about upcycling!
THANK YOU for mentioning this! I cold-brew iced coffee all summer (Gorilla Coffee’s Fair Trade Organic coffee is my favorite for this) but microwaved cold brewed coffee just isn’t the same to me. I also don’t feel like French Press coffee has enough flavor and loses too much heat while it’s brewing. I experimented with it for months and never loved it – always thought it lacked full bodied, strong flavor I like. Ironically I actually usually like the coffee flavor and temperature from those K-Cup machines and I really like how easy they are to use but would never have bought something so wasteful. I looked into it last year and found only that there might be a company making biodegradable cups. I never knew there was a reusable cup and may just put this on my wish list now!
I love my Keurig and wouldn’t trade back for anything. I have an airtight jar and every few days I grind a fresh batch of beans and use that over the course of a few days. My husband only drinks hot chocolate so it’s nice that he can use it too, just switches out the inserts – and of course when we’re sick we also use it for tea. So it’s a triple duty machine for us, plus the verssatility of being able to make whatever kind of coffee our dinner guests want, since some want regular coffee but we only drink decaf, you don’t need to make two pots. It only gets a little difficult if you have more than, say 6 people all waiting for their after dinner coffee, i’d say if you have a large dinner party drag out the coffee urn instead.
The recycling issue and BPA is always a concern for anything made of plastic. According to Keurig there is no BPA in any of the plastic with which either foor or water, or steam, comes in contact. Additionally, the k cups are kosher certified.