Things I hate: Coffee K-cups

[Picture: Herb Swanson for The New York Times]
I've been meaning to post about this for a while, but Gawker and The New York Times beat me to it. We have these things at my office- I bet you do too. And now they are very popular for home use as well. Pardon me for being a coffee snob, but they taste AWFUL. Plus, it is a newly created stream of sheer plastic waste. Therefore, they are things I hate. To review, Things I Hate generally:

- are made of plastic
- are meant to be used once and tossed away
- are not in any way recyclable
- appeal to people's vanity and desire for instant gratification
- strive to create a need where there was none before
- are recently created streams of pure waste

How long till we see these things stuck in the gullet of a baby albatross on Midway?

A couple choice quotes from the Times and Gawker- but go read them, too!

The Times:

More than 80 percent of Green Mountain’s $803 million in sales last year came from nonrecyclable, nonbiodegradable, single-use coffee pods and their brewing systems. This year, the company expects to sell nearly three billion K-Cups, the plastic and tinfoil pods that are made to be thrown away — filter, grounds and all — after one use.
.........

Michael Dupee, Green Mountain's vice president for corporate social responsibility, said some customers did not like to see the waste. "Consumers see the waste stream," Mr. Dupee said, "and they compare it to what they had done before, and they have a perception that there is a problem."

Gawker:

I'm no "LEED certified environmental consultant" or "person with a grasp of basic science," but it seems to me that brewing coffee one cup at a time via disposable plastic "K-cups" is a mite wasteful. Well, that's just "consumer perception."...Silly consumers, always perceiving things.

Things I hate: Microwaveable 'convenience' foods

(Photo: Gawker)

As a reminder, Things I Hate generally:

- are made of plastic
- are meant to be used once and tossed away
- are not in any way recyclable
- appeal to people's vanity and desire for instant gratification
- strive to create a need where there was none before
- are recently created streams of pure waste

Microwaveable convenience foods skeeve me out, and not just because they never, ever look like the picture on the box when prepared. First, there's the waste issue. By the time you are done there's practically more packaging waste than food, and most of it is plastic.

For another thing, there's the act of microwaving food in plastic. Knowing what we know now about plastic and heat, it boggles my mind that there are hugely profitable companies designing entire lines of food that are heated in their own 'disposable' plastic containers. (I haven't looked at any of these things in the store lately- what kind of plastic do they use for the dishes? Is it BPA free? Recyclable? Has any consumer group even asked about this??) Here, have some toxic chemicals with your mass produced, highly processed meal! Yech. How much longer before the thought of heating food in plastic becomes anathema? That day will come, I'm pretty sure of it.

I also object to the whole aesthetic. Who wants to eat or even serve food out of a dish that looks like it should contain dog food? (And that is what the food more or less looks like in reality anyway...)

Then there is the whole mass production issue. Mass production enables millions of people to be fed for relatively little money- a plus. But it comes with risks- like the mass distribution of yummy, yummy salmonella.

Microwaveable convenience foods: how convenient are they, really?

Pic of the Day

(Picture via Huffington Post)

Petroleum marine pollution on the beach, coated in its own layer of petroleum marine pollution.

Things I hate: Plastic as an economic indicator

Last week, American Public Media's show Marketplace stated

If you want to see signs the economy is bouncing back, look no farther than plastic.

My stomach took a nosedive when I heard that. The story goes that Dow Chemical's stated earnings surged a whopping 2,300 percent, and this is a good thing because it means that people are buying more stuff. And as we all know, stuff is either made of plastic, comes wrapped in plastic, or both. Further, Bill Wood of Mountain Top Economics and Research says that in a recovering economy, plastic packaging will always recover first as consumers go back to old habits:

BILL Wood: You could buy a head of lettuce, or you could buy prepackaged salad. You could buy a block of cheese, or you could buy pre-grated cheese. But as the economy recovers, consumers tend to purchase more of the preprocessed, packaged stuff.

So if Dow Chemical's profits are up, that means we are BACK, America! USA! USA!

Sigh.

Here is a nice visual to go along with the story. It is a time lapse video of 24 hours at a Walmart. I wonder, of all the stuff and packaging purchased that day, how much of it ended in a landfill in the following 24 hours?

Stephen Wilkes - Time-Lapse: A Day at A Walmart Store. from BERNSTEIN & ANDRIULLI on Vimeo.

Things I Hate: Plastic Gift and Discount Cards

This morning in the office mail I saw a postcard made entirely from plastic. It had perforation lines for the featured promotion, a 20% discount card. Um, wow. Was that really necessary?? It reminded me of something I hate: plastic gift and discount cards. To review, Things I Hate generally:

- are made of plastic
- are meant to be used once and tossed away
- are not in any way recyclable
- appeal to people's vanity and desire for instant gratification
- strive to create a need where there was none before
- are recently created streams of pure waste

Now before I launch in, I have to say my hate is directed at the producers of the cards, not at people who give them. I have a gift card or two at home, intend to use them, and very much appreciate the thoughtfullness of the gift. Also- a couple Christmases ago I gave iTunes cards to my nieces and nephews because I wanted to give them a non-material gift: music of their choice. I suppose I could have investigated buying the iTunes credit online and giving them a paper card with the code, but having a plastic iTunes card to give them was faster and easier. I totally get the convenience and appeal of gift cards. I still hate them.

How long have plastic gift cards been around? Ten years? Fifteen? They are everywhere now--every chain store has them. I killed some time Sunday afternoon checking out the big new Barnes & Noble on the upper east side. The display of gift cards before you get to the registers is HUGE. Why dedicate so much pricey floor space to one-time-use plastic cards? Why do they need a selection of cards so vast- it is a book store, not a gift card store, right? My guess is they make more money selling those cards than actual books. That is really something.

Whatever happened to paper gift certificates and coupons?

Things I Hate

I have a new blog label: Things I Hate. Things I hate generally:

- are made of plastic (of course)
- are meant to be used once and tossed away
- are not in any way recyclable
- appeal to people's vanity and desire for instant gratification
- strive to create a need where there was none before
- are recently created streams of pure waste

A previous example of a Thing I Hate is the ubiquitous-in-warm-weather iced coffee cup/straw/lid combo.

Another example hasn't appeared yet here on the blog, but was mentioned in Elizabeth Royte's Mother Jones Article: the Starbuck's splash stick. These "adorable" plastic lid plugs appeared a little over a year ago. I started seeing them littered on NYC sidewalks this past winter. They aren't around much now, but wait until the weather cools off-- they'll be back. It is a cute little throw-away plastic plug for your cute little throw-away plastic coffee lid. Gag.

Here is the latest entry to Things I Hate: The Colgate Wisp. Have you seen the ad? A hip and gorgeous clubber whispers lowly to her partner in a female impersonation of Arnold Schwarzenneger: "Aahl be right beck." Then you see her pull a Colgate Wisp from her evening clutch purse so she can achieve fresh, kissable breath on the dance floor. Isn't it funny how they don't show her wrestling with the packaging while trying to hold on to her clutch, or sticking the Lilliputian device in her mouth...then swallowing the gunk from the liquid filled bead, along with all the plaque she just brushed loose (since it is designed to be used without water)? And then tossing the used Wisp on the floor to be trampled under foot?

Oh. Well I thought it was funny.

NOTCOT has a series of pictures of the Wisp and its packaging in all its clever glory.

The Thing I Dread About Spring

Last weekend in NYC we had spring-like temperatures. Everyone stripped off coats and sweaters and headed out of doors. Cold temperatures have returned, but signs of spring have been seen this week-- spring fashions in store windows, Easter candy at Duane Reade...and the annual re-appearance of iced coffee cups.

Crystal clear polypropylene iced beverage cups with matching flat or domed lids and colorful thick long straws: these things didn't exist 15 years ago*, but now they are ubiquitous. Almost all of these cups, lids and straws end up as trash. Polypropylene is #5 plastic, so it is now recyclable through Gimme 5, provided there is a chasing arrows symbol on the cup or lid. It sure would be nice if Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds et al took back the cups for recycling as well. Think about it-- 15 years ago, this waste stream DIDN'T EXIST. And somehow we all muddled through our summers without a throw-away cup of iced coffee or iced tea attached to our hands.

And by the way, these 'disposable' cups, lids and straws don't come cheap. Look at the prices on this retail site, for example. Your average cup with a flat lid and straw runs about $.12, just for the packaging!

Do I want stores to stop selling iced coffee and iced tea? No. That would make them lose a lot of money. Here's my message: Iced beverages taste just as good in re-usable mugs and tumblers as they do in a plastic cup. What's more, many places will give you a discount for bringing your own tumbler, just like they do with hot beverages. I want stores to push re-usable containers for iced beverages, and for consumers to be just as aware of this kind of waste as they are becoming aware of plastic bags and bottles.

Rant over!

*I based my 15 years figure on this article, stating that Dunkin' Donuts introduced iced beverages in 1995. I don't know when clear polyproplene cups were introduced to the market.