Coffee Pods - a Sustainable Solution or Fleeting Fad?
Whether you use them or not, single-use coffee pods have taken the world by storm... and with quite a large amount of controversy. So what made a luxury coffee producer choose aluminum for their coffee pods? Luxury coffee producer Nespresso chose to use aluminum to create their pre-portioned capsules because it offered the best protection from oxidation, preserved coffee freshness, and prevented food waste through leftovers. (According to the Sustainability Manager at Nespresso, the kitchen sink is the largest source of consumption of coffee made by standard drip pots.) Now, we know individual coffee pods can be controversial, even to the point of attempted ban in the US and Europe, and creating aluminum is no easy process either. So why did Nespresso choose Aluminum where Keurig chose plastic? In 2009, Nespresso decided to source sustainable aluminum with the help of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. By 2015, Nespresso has 14 non-government organizations