Convenience vs. Sustainability - A conflict with single-brew coffee
Jay Mackenzie
Ever have a Love-Hate relationship with something? Maybe you have it with a food like chocolate or a salty snack. You can’t get enough of the taste but you hate what it does to your health. Or maybe for you it’s a friend or a family member...you love em to bits but sometimes they can drive you crazy!
Recently I’ve discovered my love-hate relationship with my Tassimo coffee maker. While I loved how quickly it made just a single cup of coffee for me in the morning, the plastic and foil pucks with coffee grounds inside would immediately lay a guilt trip on me first thing in the morning as I tossed it in to the garbage. All the other hard-to-recycle items from home and work would immediately pop in to my head and suddenly I would find myself glaring at the coffee maker thinking “This relationship can’t continue”. I was moving backwards not forwards in my goal of being “zero waste” both at a personal level and a business level! Should I toss the coffee maker out? Should I stop selling Tassimo and Kcup items? What about cookie packages and other snack packages that are not recyclable? Would I have to stop selling them too and where do I draw the line?
Finally I sought help and advice from a favourite source... Google (Sorry mom). I found TerraCycle which specializes in recycling hard to recycle products that would otherwise end up in the landfill. You collect and organize the items and when you are ready to send out the stuff, you log in to TerraCycle and generate a UPS shipping label to arrange for pickup at the nearest UPS outlet AT NO COST! And it gets better!!! Points are awarded to units recycled and then converted to funds which can be allocated to any non profit organization or school of your choice. So guess what Roosters has partnered up with?!
As we strive towards being a “zero waste” grocery store, we will collect your cookie and cracker wrappers, your Schneider’s Lunch Mate packages, your Tassimo and Kcup pucks and your coffee bags and we are on a waiting list for more items. Points earned once accumulated will be donated to a great local cause yet to be announced. Finally I can enjoy my morning brew guilt free. Now if I could only find a similar solution for gummi bears and a way to recycle all that hot air that comes out of uncle Frank’s mouth...oops...inside voice. See you at Roosters!!!