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I waste 7 pounds of petroleum driving to work, and .01 lbs from my morning k-cup. My time has value, and I am not going to waste it greenwashing.
by jcampbell1 13y ago
I waste 7 pounds of petroleum driving to work, and .01 lbs from my morning k-cup. My time has value, and I am not going to waste it greenwashing.
- jchrisa 13y agoFar better coffee with roughly equivalent hassles: http://www.sweetmarias.com/clevercoffeedripperpictorial.php http://www.sweetmarias.com/clevercoffeedripperpictorial.php
- jcampbell1 13y agoThanks, that is a good suggestion. It takes 5 minutes instead of 15 seconds. I'll give that try using the Keurig machine for hot water. The Keurig coffee is definitely mediocre.
- adambard 13y agoDefinitely doesn't do away with waste, although compostable paper filters are better than plastic pods (unless the pods can be composted?)
- Consultant32452 13y agoMost people just throw away those compostable paper filters and they wind up buried in an oxygen deprived environment where they will never biodegrade. I wonder which one compresses into smaller land fill space: the paper filter or the plastic k-cup.
- jchrisa 13y agoWe're hippies so we use an organic cotton one, unless it's 4am and it's dirty we have backup paper filters.
- ctdonath 13y agoThat's a good one. Also try the AeroPress: faster brew, smaller filters (reusable metal available), fast clean, excellent results.
- zimbatm 13y agoI guess value is relative. I prefer good coffee and preparing it is part of the experience. It's like writing this comment on HN, what value does it bring to you ?
- jcampbell1 13y agoI was referencing the "actively dissuade" part. I don't mind if people adopt environmentalism as a religion where all trash is a sin, I just don't want to be a part of it. I want to think about environmental impact broadly and go after the high impact items. Talking about K-Cup trash is a distraction from what is important.
- pessimizer 13y agoSo you're saying that you're going to stop burning so much petroleum to get to work, and to do that you have to ignore anything that you do that has a lesser impact on the environment? I can't say that I understand the single-mindedness, but congratulations on the electric car or the not commuting so far or whatever. Unless what you're saying is that you're going to ignore everything that pollutes less than the important high-impact items that you're also going to ignore.
- jcampbell1 13y agoYes. I use logic and reasoning and order of magnitude estimation to think about environmental impact. I also think people who obsess over polyethylene grocery bags are bad at math. Unfortunately, many of these people manage to influence public policy to my inconvenience. It is religion, not science.
- blacksmith_tb 13y agoI am sure there are some who claim the small amount of oil that went into the production of a grocery bag is a problem, but my impression in general was that they were being legislated away in many places because of littering, hazards to wildlife, etc., and not so much that they are wasteful of fossil fuels.
- kunai 13y agoHow is using a good old coffee maker with beans a waste of time? You're getting better coffee and you're only spending a minute on brewing.
- adventured 13y agoWell part of the problem is the claim about better. Craft beers are superior to generic domestic lite beers, right? No, it's strictly subjective to every individual's preference. I've known some people that prefer cheap or generic coffee, made in a clunky old coffee pot, slightly burnt. Is their taste wrong / worse / inferior? It can't be, it's their taste.
- ajcarpy2005 13y agoWell if taste is your only metric, we can probably conclude that perception is _less_ objective than one which factors in freshness of beans (oxidation), amount of mycotoxins, waste, etc.
- nsmnsf 13y ago> I waste 7 pounds of petroleum driving to work Yes... that is also a problem.
- nocoment 13y ago> I waste 7 pounds of petroleum driving to work .. My time has value Why do you value time in the car (or monster truck) so highly?
- ufmace 13y agoIncidentally, a gallon of gas seems to weigh about 6 pounds. So 7 pounds is a bit over a gallon, which probably gets you around 30 miles or so in an average car with decent fuel economy. On the commuting statistics I can find, look like around 8% of Americans commute about that far. So OP is probably a standard deviation or so past average for either distance or fuel economy, but nothing crazy. Assuming he didn't just make up the weight number, of course.
- nocoment 13y agoYeah, I don't think it is odd for an American in general just in the context of valuing time. You don't think about the 30-60 minutes in the car because you are sitting there killing yourself faster, but wasting less bodily energy than sleeping. The time spent making coffee is probably good for your lifespan, but standing around, moving and cleaning things feels bad for us lazy apes..
- jcampbell1 13y agoI was trying to use the US average. A 15 mile commute each way is about 1 gallon of gas per day. I thought that was 7 lbs, but my memory was incorrect as that is the density of diesel/jet fuel. Gasoline is closer to 6 lbs per gallon as you say.
- normloman 13y agoThen use a reusable keurig pod and get both the benefits of fast coffee and less waste. Unless, of course, your time is so valuable that you can't even spare the 15 seconds it takes to wash the reusable pod.
- jcampbell1 13y agoThe needy baby is the bigger issue, not the time. She also likes pressing the button on the machine.
- ssharp 13y agoI have a Breville machine that allows you to pour in a heap of coffee beans, and it grinds and automatically fills the filter with your desired strength based on how much water you put in the machine. I believe they also make one that has a water reservoir that you periodically fill and you can just dial in a cup amount and it does everything else for you. I've been pretty happy with it since I get fresh ground coffee and don't need to measure it. You still have to clean the filter after every use, but really it takes me less than 60 seconds to clean out the filter and fill the machine with water. Grinding the coffee and measuring it out manually was the biggest bottleneck in my daily coffee routine, so the Breville has at least eliminated that step. Now if I could only plumb water directly to it...
- cortesoft 13y ago60 seconds to clean isn't nothing. Changing the keurig pods takes less than 3 seconds. It might make me lazy, but every second I am not cleaning my coffee device I can be doing something else.
- lisper 13y agoThis. Plus I have yet to see any non-pod-style coffee machine that can competently make one cup at a time.
- not-gro-tsen 13y agoI have a manual grinder and an Aeropress. Making one cup at a time is easy, and the taste is superior to pod-style coffee in my opinion. The time I spend grinding the coffee is part of the enjoyment.
- balls187 13y agoReally? http://globalassets.starbucks.com/assets/bbbb918e28fa404b836246b63cb5af65.jpg http://globalassets.starbucks.com/assets/bbbb918e28fa404b836... I much prefer that machine to the crappy k-cup machines.
- cleaver 13y agoMaking an espresso with a mostly manual machine is an enjoyable once or twice-daily ritual for me. The flavour is most important, but I actually enjoy the time spent making the coffee. However, each person may value the various aspects of caffeine consumption differently.
- freerobby 13y agoIf you can afford a Jura, they're just as easy as a Keurig, better tasting, and a much less wasteful. You can use any beans you want, too. http://www.amazon.com/Jura-13626-Ena-Micro-1/dp/B008RZFQKO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1393903871&sr=8-2&keywords=jura+ena http://www.amazon.com/Jura-13626-Ena-Micro-1/dp/B008RZFQKO/r... At four cups per day it pays for itself in about two years.
- beedogs 13y ago> My time has value Well, aren't you special? There's no difference in time spent using a standard all-in-one grinder/coffeemaker vs. a Keurig, and the results are going to be better-tasting.
- lostlogin 13y ago20 mins a week roasting beans (10 mins a batch), and a morning ritual of espresso making and then drinking. Id have it no other way.
- vostrocity 13y agoInteresting that you view it that way. I also compare my convenience to time, and every time I use a plastic container I think about how it came from peat that was built up over millions of years and took a certain amount of energy and fuel to travel across oceans to reach me in final product form and now I will handle it for approximately 15 seconds and it will proceed to the landfill where it will stay for a few hundred years and outlive my children's children.