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Coffee pods slammed by inventor

The inventor of one of the world’s most popular coffee pods has labelled them as expensive and bad for the environment.

John Sylvan is one of the inventors of K-Cup, a coffee pod sold in the US. Last year Americans bought 9 million K-Cups and K-Cup’s parent company, Keurig Green Mountain, made $4.7 billion in revenue.

Despite their popularity, Sylvan said he doesn’t even use the pods he invented, Perth Now reports.

“I don’t have one. They’re kind of expensive to use,” he said in a candid interview with The Atlantic. “Plus it’s not like drip coffee is tough to make.”

Sylvan sold his share of the company for just $50,000 in 1997, but it’s the pod’s impact on the environment which causes him the greatest concern.

K-Cups are made from plastic and foil and are still not recyclable or biodegradable.

“No matter what they say about recycling, those things will never be recyclable,” Sylvan said. “The plastic is a specialised plastic made of four different layers.”

Reflecting on the impact his invention may have had on the environment, Sylvan says, “I feel bad sometimes that I ever did it”.

Some brands, like Nespresso (their pods are made from aluminium) offer to recycle their used pods for you, but you have to take them to specific collection points.

In 2013, Nespresso said it collected “75 percent of all capsules sold worldwide”, according to consumer group Choice.

“But while it may have collected 75 percent of the capsules, Nespresso doesn’t say whether that many have actually been recycled,” Choice says.

“Nespresso has sold an estimated 28 billion capsules worldwide and counting – that’s about 28 million kilograms of aluminium, much of which may be sitting in landfill.”

Although it’s possible to buy sustainable coffee pods from brands like Eco Caffe, most are only available online.

Chief sustainability officer of Keurig Green Mountain (which owns K-Cup) Monique Oxender, acknowledges the brand has a long way to go.

“I gotta be honest with you,” Oxender said, “we’re not happy with where we are either. We have to get a solution, and we have to get it in place quickly.”

 

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