Regina Leader-Post

Coffee pods: The cost of convenienc­e

Keurig cleans up with ‘recyclable’ pods, but not all communitie­s accept them

- PETER KUITENBROU­WER

Keurig Green Mountain Inc. has taken North America by storm with its fabulously convenient coffee pod brewing system — up to three million homes in Canada own a Keurig machine.

But the company has also been a victim of that success, weathering epic abuse over the mountains of spent pods that clog landfills across the continent.

A 2015 spoof of a disaster movie that went viral on YouTube, Kill the K-Cup, depicts monsters made of coffee pods who disembark from coffee pod flying saucers and rain terror on a city using spent Keurig pods as ordnance.

Now Keurig Canada Inc. wants consumers to feel better about coffee pods. The company has retooled its factory in St. Michel, a suburb of Montreal, to produce K-Cup pods in polypropyl­ene No. 5, which is recyclable.

But recyclable where, and at what cost? While Halifax and cities across British Columbia, for example, accept the pod cups in the blue bin (provided consumers remove the lid, dump the coffee grounds, and, in the case of Halifax, remove the filter), big cities such as Toronto and Keurig ’s hometown of Montreal do not.

Keurig’s battle to salvage its environmen­tal reputation is emblematic of the pitfalls that face companies: They may win friends with a simple, practical product, but also can get a bad name if they don’t plan what happens at the end of the product’s life.

“Over 60 per cent of Keurig users say that impact on the environmen­t of using these machines is their No. 1 concern,” said Robert Carter of market research company NPD Canada, whose questionna­ires survey 130,000 Canadians. “That’s really, really big.”

Pollution concerns, however, have not stopped people from buying K-Cups, because “the convenienc­e factor always outweighs other factors,” Carter said. “Consumers say they believe companies are doing as much as they can to make these pods environmen­tally friendly.”

Coffee pods are tremendous­ly convenient: Just pop in the little capsule, press the button, and you get an exact-size, hot cup of coffee, every time. This ease of use has led to spectacula­r growth in the category.

Five years ago, consumers used a pod machine to brew one in five cups of coffee. Now 50 per cent of brewed coffee comes from a pod. Thanks to this ease, Canadians are drinking more coffee; we are the second-biggest coffee drinking nation on earth, NPD numbers show. Only Italy beats us.

All this coffee means lots of spent pods — and Keurig does not make recycling easy.

Here’s the 7-step process: The pod comes out of the machine hot. Let it cool. Then, struggle to peel the foil off its top (unlike yogurt tubs, there is no tab on the foil). Toss the foil in the garbage. Scoop the coffee grounds into the compost. Under the grounds a little paper filter is glued to the plastic. Tear that filter off and discard. Rinse excess grounds off the cup.

Now, throw the little plastic cups in the recycling (typically blue) bin — if your city permits it.

“We have some very serious concerns that nobody is going to separate the parts of the pod, and it’s just going to make the problem worse,” said Jim McKay, general manager of solid waste at the City of Toronto, which does not accept coffee pods for recycling.

He said Torontonia­ns already toss 10 million such pods in the wrong bin. The city asks residents to throw them in the garbage.

But Stéphane Glorieux, chief executive of Keurig Canada, said he feels confident that he can rescue his company’s environmen­tal bona fides.

“We are going to change the way the consumer sees small items being recycled,” said Glorieux, whose company employs 1,400 across Canada. “We have invested $50 million in St. Michel. We want to brew a better world.”

He said in an interview all Keurig cups in Canada will be recyclable by the end of 2018. “It’s faster than our parent in the U.S. It’s a Canadian story. A lot of plastics are out there and we should recycle as much as we can.”

Glorieux said that “94 per cent of communitie­s across Canada can take a Keurig cup and recycle it.” A spokespers­on later clarified, saying: “94 per cent of communitie­s across Canada accept No. 5 plastic.”

Up to now, K-Cups have become a river heading to landfill; Keurig has produced more than 60 billion pods worldwide to date. (That’s not counting Keurig-compatible pods produced by Tim Hortons, President’s Choice, Nabob and others, or other coffee pod makers, such as Massimo and Nespresso). Even the inventor of Keurig told the Atlantic magazine he regrets his creation because of the waste it generates.

“It’s an extremely convenient product to use, but to manage it after you’ve used it is extremely inconvenie­nt,” the city of Toronto’s McKay said.

Ultimately, the challenge for Keurig and others is that the people who love the convenienc­e of popping a pod into a machine for a cup of fresh coffee are probably not the same people who would bother separating, rinsing and recycling the pod at the other end. Even those who do throw the pods in recycling or compost are, in many cities, making the problem worse.

“The environmen­tal cost associated with these pods is high,” says Toronto councillor Jaye Robinson, chair of the city’s works committee, who has ordered a staff report for this fall on how to deal with the mess from coffee pods.

 ?? PETER J. THOMPSON ?? Canada Fibers Ltd. Plant Manager Brian Sneyd holds up Keurig coffee pods at the company’s Toronto location on Thursday. Toronto asks its residents to throw the pods in the garbage, but many end up in the city’s blue bins. Keurig calls its new pods...
PETER J. THOMPSON Canada Fibers Ltd. Plant Manager Brian Sneyd holds up Keurig coffee pods at the company’s Toronto location on Thursday. Toronto asks its residents to throw the pods in the garbage, but many end up in the city’s blue bins. Keurig calls its new pods...

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