Step 1: Insert your K-cup.
Step 2: Close the chamber, piercing the bottom of the cup.
Step 3: Hit the brew button.
Step 4: Enjoy the pleasant aroma of a single cup of coffee.
Step 5: Toss the used K-cup into the garbage.
Step 6: Wait several centuries for the plastic cup to biodegrade in a landfill.
One Canadian company was not satisfied with step 6, so it set out to put a stop to it.
PurPod introduced a third-party compostable K-cup earlier this month that would biodegrade after about 84 days, according to a report on Uproxx, a news website.
While she likes the idea of a K-cup that can go on the compost heap, Suzanne Dulong — vice president of communications for Keurig Green Mountain — doesn’t think it will happen in the United States anytime soon.
“The U.S. lacks the support for compostable plastic,” Dulong told the Record. “It needs to be sent to a compost facility.”
However, the company is introducing a line of new recyclable K-cups.
“It’s definitely a milestone,” Dulong said.
For now, the new K-cups are available only online at keurig.com, but Dulong said the company is hoping to be fully recyclable by 2020.
To recycle the new pods, which are made from No. 5 plastic, consumers must only peel off the top label, pour the contents into the trash and drop the pod in the recycling.
Plastics such as the ones used in the PurPod K-cups need a specific microbe to break down, which is not common here yet.
Keurig Green Mountain is not getting behind the compostable K-cup yet, but the company is trying to curb its K-cup footprint. Keurig coffee machines have been criticized as unsustainable and environmentally unfriendly because of the recycling issue.
Dulong is unsure how many K-cups are thrown out on a daily basis in the United States.
“It’s hard to quantify,” she said. “There are some places where the No. 7 pods are recyclable.”
Plastics are split into seven types, depending on how they are made and how easily they are recycled. No. 7 plastics is a catch-all group that are sometimes recycled, but not usually.
“It depends on your municipality,” Dulong said.
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexual language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be proactive. Use the "Report" link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.