According to a new story in Time Magazine, not only are single-use K-cups — you know, the little plastic cups of ground coffee that you place in your Keurig coffee maker to make a super quick and convenient cop of coffee — bad for the environment (they can’t be recycled and go directly into the landfill), but they are also leaching microplastics into every cup you drink.
As per the article:
“Much like the inside of your body, it’s important to understand the inner workings of your single-cup coffee machine. It heats the water to about 190°F, just shy of boiling, and forces it through the pod under high pressure. As the brewed coffee is released from the pod, the heat and pressure cause the plastic to release chemicals and fragment into tiny pieces, which then slip quietly into the dark brown swirl.”
What’s a single-cup-at-a-time coffee-lover to do? How can you avoid adding those undesirable, inflammatory toxins to your coffee when you’re making a cuppa joe?
This was top of mind for me when I recently needed a new coffee maker. Here is what I ended up with, and I’m loving the k-cup-free life!
Just be sure NOT to put your coffee grounds down the sink! I heard recently that coffee grounds are the number one source of clogged sinks. We dump ours into the compost bin and then simply rinse out the filter before each use.
