The Magazine of The Sierra Club
K-Cups Have Never Been More Terrifying
It’s just another work day, time to grab a morning coffee. But as you walk to the kitchen you feel the floor shake, followed by a roar. What could possibly be happening?
It’s the K-Cups, and they’ve come to destroy the Earth.
This horror video, created by Halifax-based “Egg Studios,” features UFOs firing K-Cups at civilians and a monster, composed completely of single-brew coffee pods, rampaging through a city. Terrified citizens run away, searching for safety, and I’m sure many of them regret their morning coffee decisions.
While this may be dramatic, Mike Hachey, the CEO of Egg Studios, thinks it's necessary to get the point across.
“We used to have a Keurig system in our office and we quickly realized these things have so much waste going into landfills,” said Hachey. “We wanted to do something that would make an impact and would have the same engagement factor of movies.”
K-Cups are single-brew coffee packets popular for their convenience. In 2013, 13 percent of daily coffee drinkers got their caffeine from a single-cup brewer like the K-Cup. While this percentage sounds small, it resulted in enough used K-Cups to circle the Earth ten and a half times.
This is a problem, because the K-Cup's trilayer structure makes it unrecyclable.
“Before Keurig, we didn’t have this problem. They created it,” said Hachey. "We feel a company like Keurig owes something to their consumers."
According to a 2013 press release, Keurig aims to make 100 percent of its K-Cups recyclable by 2020. But Hachey says it isn't good enough. "I think it's our responsibility to say something and to make a bigger deal out of it. What we want is for them to be more sustainable now."
So what should we do until then? A good course of action it to choose an eco-friendlier option such a French press or compostable filters in a drip coffee maker.