The Environmental Impact Of Coffee Pods (and what you can do)
More info and an FAQ:
Read more data here: https://craftcoffeespot.com/environme...
More info on how to recycle pods: https://craftcoffeespot.com/nespresso...
The goal of this video is to raise awareness about the environmental impact of coffee pods using our research on the number of coffee pods going to waste every year.
FAQs on this video
Why not condemn coffee pod machines entirely?
The same reason we don’t condemn all C-market coffee or pre-ground coffee. It’s impractical and way beyond our mission. At Craft Coffee Spot, we want people to brew better coffee at home. We don’t want to shame people and would rather raise awareness and ask that people recycle.
How did you get the data, and is it accurate?
We found the data from third parties and our own survey. Keurig and Nespresso (Nestle) are public companies that report audited data. We compared this again other surveys on household penetration to give us an idea of the total market size. The usage numbers are the hardest to find. We know Keurig used to report usage that was over 1 pod per day, and we found recent data from NPD saying it’s roughly 1 pod per machine per day.
Then, we commissioned our own survey of 1,500 people to find the 27% recycling rate of coffee pods. That number is close to Nespresso’s recycling rate of 28% (which sadly declined in the latest report).
Please recognize we’re regular people trying our best. This data is our best effort to quantify the amount of waste. We’ll take feedback and revise numbers if someone has better data. Feel free to contact us at [email protected], or read more here: https://craftcoffeespot.com/environme...
Lastly, the pod numbers are only for North America and Europe. We used those regions because that’s where data exists and where most pod machines are used, for better or worse. There’s an argument our data is understated.
Why are you so favorable to Nespresso?
That is not the goal of this video. Nespresso makes it easy to recycle pods, and their pods are made of aluminum which is infinitely recyclable with less environmental impact. I also like the taste of their pods.
That said, Nespresso has some serious issues. First, their recycling bags are hard to find. Second, Nespresso is owned by Nestle, which sells lots of single-use plastics (mainly bottled water) that are not good for the environment. You can find negative press around Nestle’s environmental impact, and we are not disclaiming that. However, that is beyond the scope of this video.
Chapters
0:00 the problem with single-serve coffee machines
0:32 size of the single-serve coffee market
1:16 how many people recycle pods
1:35 environmental impact of coffee pod waste
2:29 how to recycle coffee pods
4:35 final plea