I just sat down to write this post with a cup of coffee. I used the Keurig machine. It's a convenient way to get a single cup. You pop in a K-cup and the machine sets out brewing a single mug of java.
I'm not the only one. It's estimated that there will be 9 billion K-cups used over the course of the year. That generates a very large amount of trash.
Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of these K-cups are not recyclable. John Sylvan, the inventor of the concept explains:
“No matter what they say about recycling, those things will never be recyclable,” Sylvan said. “The plastic is a specialized plastic made of four different layers." The cups are made from plastic #7, a mix that is recyclable in only a handful of cities in Canada. That plastic keeps the coffee inside protected like a nuclear bunker, and it also holds up during the brewing process. A paper prototype failed to accomplish as much.
And because the K-Cup is made of that plastic integrated with a filter, grounds, and plastic foil top, there is no easy way to separate the components for recycling. A Venn diagram would likely have little overlap between people who pay for the ultra-convenience of K-Cups and people who care enough to painstakingly disassemble said cups after use.
Keurig is hard at work on creating a greener version. Older models of the Keurig will also allow for the use of specialized plastic K-cups with metal filters that can be emptied and reused multiple times. Unfortunately, the newer version uses a copyright protection scheme built into the lid which does not allow these methods.
While Sylvan regrets the waste he unwittingly created by inventing this device, he is hard at work on his next idea:
Disruptors, it seems, gonna disrupt. Amazing as it would be if Sylvan were about to capitalize on that and upend the company that once bought him out, he is doing okay either way. When he was bought out of Keurig in 1997, he turned around and bought stock in Green Mountain for $3.20 per share. He sold the stock a couple years ago when it broke $140. He also recently started a new company that sells solar panels, partly to atone for the environmental problem he believes he created. The company is called Zonbak, which means “sun bucket,” in Dutch.
Here is a link to the original article: How Bad Are K-Cups for the Environment? — The Atlantic
Another article from Mashable: 9 billion Keurig K-Cups likely ended up in landfills last year
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