Mother's like their daughters Trashy...

...at least mine does!

It's Mother's Day! In celebration of my undying adoration and appreciation for my amazing Mother, I'm going to share this news article that she sent me earlier this week. Thanks for feeding my Trash addiction Ma...

Keurig reverses course on refillable K-Cup coffee pods after a fierce backlash

Now the "fierce backlash" is really more about hipsters inability to brew their own organic, single origin, limited reserve, Ethiopian, medium roast coffee beans in the newest generation of Keurig machines than it is about the waste that disposable k-cups generate but I'll take what I can get.

Unlike past models of the Keurig machines the Keurig 2.0 cannot accept any reusable K-Cups (also known as My K-Cup) not like loads of people were using the refillable ones to begin with. The CEO of Keurig stated that they will create a reusable K-Cup that is suitable for the newer machines to use. Older versions of the My K-Cup still will not work in Keurig 2.0. 

Now I'd love to stand on my soap box and shout that this is due to the unwavering strong arm of environmentalists, but I can't. Like any solid business in our capitalist society this change is about money, not Trash but I'm beginning to think there's something to this Trash/Money equation.... A steady decline in sales lead Keurig to bring back the reusable cup after a "very small percent" of customers made a fuss on social media... 

But the fuss must have been big enough to cause the CEO to change his tune. Not even giving people the choice of using reusable cups in theory was better for the bottom line, but turns out money talks in mysterious ways. At least now caffeine addicts have a choice on how they do a brew. I'll take this as a win! 

No matter the reason behind the decision, the change will satisfy coffee connoisseur's, environmentalists and business folk alike. A rare but achievable feat. 

Stay Trashy friends & Happy Mother's Day! 

Death to the K Cup!!

We all saw this coming...and by 'we' I mean us trash-junkies..pun intentional...

K cups highlight an ever growing problem in our modern day world (largely in America) that the convenience of single use products is quickly infiltrating our daily life. For all the "good" that comes from K cups (less stale coffee, I guess?) there's a whole lotta bad...

Don't know what I'm talking about?  Grab your reusable coffee mug, sit back and watch this short video:

Like, whoa. Here's a few more numbers from a Mother Jones article,

 "Green Mountain only makes 5 percent of its current cups out of recyclable plastic. The rest of them are made up of a #7 composite plastic, which is non recyclable in most places. And for the small few that are recyclable, the aluminum lid must be separated from the cup, which also must be emptied of its wet ground, for the materials to make it through the recycling process."  

In a society that has a hard enough time even getting the plastic bottle into the recycling can when it's right next to the garbage can..that's a lot to ask for. Our addiction to single use items is going to be a tough one to end. Even for me! It's hard to steer clear of the single use items that are ever increasingly more available. Luckily, as a tea drinker, my caffeinated single serve options are compostable, but I still fall pray to other sirens of single use I'm looking at you Q-tips! 

So what's a conscientious consumer to do? I'm all about individual impact, so take notice! Encourage your office to invest in some reusable pod cups, take note of what single use items you're addicted to and think of how you can either reuse the item (safely) or a reusable alternative. The answer is out there people!  

Now that you're feeling guilty for your love affair with the office Keurig..here are a few more things to ease your conscious and give yourself a gold star:

Join the #KilltheKCup movement. 

Go on and splurge on some reusable, single serve coffee pods (available in places like CVS, Bed Bath & Beyond, and of course the interwebs)

Sign the petition to the CEO of Keurig to make universally recyclable single use pods.  

Stay trashy, folks! 

UPDATE: A week after publishing this post, the inventor of the K-cup came out and said he feels bad for even inventing them.