Just go to Starbucks

    Sometimes, our reliance on convenience has very negative effects. A perfect example of this is the Keurig K-Cup, as made evident in "A Brewing Problem". K-Cups are single-use containers which are used to make coffee with Keurig coffee brewers. They make about a cup of coffee per container. Keurig Green Mountain sold 9 billion K-Cups last year, enough that if placed end-to-end, would circle the globe 10.5 times. This is great for Keurig Green Mountain, but not whatsoever for the environment. This is because K-Cups are not recyclable or biodegradable. This means they will sit buried in a landfill forever. When this news originally broke to the public, it caused lots of outrage. The people at Egg Studios, a production company, were some of the people who were angry. They created and posted to YouTube, a video titled "Kill the K-Cup" The video currently has over 743,000 views on YouTube, and its’ message continues to trend on several social media outlets. Since the video went viral, hinting that many others view the K-Cup as a serious problem, Keurig Green Mountain has been forced to respond. They’ve recently unveiled plans to make K-Cups fully recyclable, but not until 2020. This means that if they continue to sell 9 billion K-Cups annually starting this year, they’ll produce 45 billion more non-recyclable pods, enough pods to circle the globe 52.5 times. The fact that it may take 5 more years for the current situation to be resolved is a bit insulting. This is because some of the competitor’s cups are already nearly completely biodegradable, recyclable, and/or reusable. Hopefully Keurig Green Mountain gets it figured out soon. They’ve already left a negative impact on the globe, and we can’t afford to let them continue doing so.

#KilltheKCup