HELENA – For many people, coffee is an important part of the daily grind. But regardless of how reliant you are on that morning cup of Joe, you’ve likely had it brewed like this.
There’s no denying that single-serve coffee machines are easy to use, especially on those extra-sleepy mornings. But all of that convenience comes at a price.
These capsules can’t simply be recycled as-is. They need to be disassembled and cleaned first. So the result? Most just end up in the landfill.
While one single-serve coffee doesn’t seem like a big deal, throughout the week, they can really add up.
Coffee is a very popular beverage of choice here in the newsroom, so for one week we collected all of the used pods in the trash. In a regular week, we used 157 cups. Multiply that by 52 weeks in a year, and that’s 8,164 pods.
If you stacked all of those pods on top of each other at the end of the year, they would reach 1020 feet into the air- that’s over 6 times higher than the Montana Capitol Building.
But if the thought of all of that garbage has you feeling down in the dumps, there are re-fillable pods that can replace the disposable ones.
Or, try french press coffee. Both of these methods offer the kick of caffiene – without the wasteful cups.
While it’s just one small thing, it can help make your daily dark roast a little more eco-friendly.
