This is quite exciting in that it removes plastic waste. I see no reason why different companies can't make different shape ones to maintain their lock-in. I expect a knock-off market to pop-up, but that exists with plastic pods too. It's a step in the right direction at least.
For fast easy machine single-serve, get a machine that takes beans. They cost about three pod-machines but they're worth it. The pod-machines are cheaper because they come with vendor lock-in for the pods, and they just profit more on those instead.
I just use the resuable pods. Can throw any coffee grounds in them, dump them in the compost when done, rinse, and use again. Have used these for at least 5 years.
Yes! We can finally buy our way out of unnecessary waste, and ultimately climate change, with this new thing that keeps us buying. Just gotta buy the ecological things and everything will be good.
Good to see Keurig try to cut down on plastic waste, but if they really wanted to make an impact, they could open-source the design of the pods so all the alt-cup manufacturers could switch as well. It may be counter-intuitive, but the more options customers have, the more machine sales and goodwill Keurig will create.
Coffee can, single piece of packaging for months on end.
Vs.
K-cups, paper, dyes, increased packaging volumes, increased energy in production, increased raw materials, 6 month shelf life = increased trips to the store to purchase more. Sustainable /s
In Switzerland we got something similar, it's little balls though. It comes packaged in cardboard and you can compost the remains https://www.coffeeb.com/en-ch
Would like to see this for more than just coffee. Although, the knock off Keurig I have came with a filter cup thing that acts like a reusable pod, so I don't really need the single serve plastic cup pods anyway. I can just put tea, coffee, hot cocoa, etc in that mesh cup and then clean it afterward.
Especially espresso pods. There's a place around here that has a 20,000 dollar espresso machine, that serves over-extracted espresso because the owner felt pods were easier or something.
I was surprised to learn that the store brand k-cups around here are already fully compostable. It’s just a biodegradable plastic ring with half a sphere of coffee filter on the bottom and a paper disc on top.
Coffee will never be sustainable. We will all keep drinking it but this is just a feel good movement of making something slightly less bad than it used to be.