The Effects of Coffee on the Environment

Coffee and coffee beans.

If you're anything like me, every morning starts with a fresh cup of coffee. Most of us don't think about things like where our coffee is coming from and how it is affecting the environment around us, but maybe we should be. in the article, Ways to Reduce the Environmental Impact of Your Morning Coffee, William Schlesinger explains how our everyday cups of coffees are actually quite harmful to our environment. Some of the main effects that are touched on in this article are deforestation, the amount of energy being used, and the large amounts of plastic disposal and caffeine waste. In this article is was stated that "Coffee consumption is growing faster than the human population, with annual consumption now topping 10 million tons per year." This is crazy! 10 millions tons of coffee per year is huge, and the number is only going to keep growing! With this rapidly growing consumption rate things are only going to continue to get worse, unless we start taking control of it now.

Deforestation of a forest. 

The actual growing of the coffee is perhaps the most harmful process as it requires the destruction of many beautiful rainforests. When coffee is grown and harvested in the shade, and under canopy of the rainforest it isn't too bad for the environment, but of course what's in high demand right now as the consumption rate of coffee goes up is sun-grown coffee. So this requires for a large area of trees to be cleared out so there is nothing blocking the sun from the coffee. Another problem within this is that the birds in these tropical forests actually disappear because of the clearing of these forests.

Photo of a Keurig (pod-brewing system). Photo by Adam Dachis

When you decide to have a cup of coffee, you have already made your largest contribution to the energy used to deliver coffee to your cup. As you may know there are many different ways to brew coffee. For example, there's the french press, the traditional coffee pots and pod brewing systems. The traditional coffee pot. These use a huge amount of energy, especially because they leave the heat on all day to keep it warm for however long they need. Pod brewing systems are perhaps the most harmful ways to brew coffee. They use an extreme amount of plastic and electronics so therefore a lot of energy is needed. The pod brewing systems that are left on standby mode where the hot water is left available for the next person leaves the worst environmental impact. The most environmentally friendly option that uses the least amount of energy is the french press. 

Aroma Joes Coffee in a plastic cup. Photo by me. 

 Another huge way that coffee is negatively impacting our environment is by the amount of plastic waste. When you buy an iced coffee at any coffee shop it is usually served to you in a plastic cup. These plastics are some of the worst kinds because they are single use and they are extremely hard to recycle properly. In class we learned about how the materials we recycle actually get recycled and the results were horrifying. All of our recycled items get sent to different countries, many of which are developing countries who are struggling to even take care of their own recycling. In order for an item to be properly recycled it cannot be contaminated in any way, and most of the plastics waiting to be recycled are in fact contaminated. If they are not properly recycled they just get thrown into landfills and most of the time they end up in the ocean or they end up flooding peoples yards. The coffee itself is also very harmful as it is shown to be contaminating the natural waters which can affect the fish and other wildlife.

 

Iced Coffee from a coffee shop in Venice Florida. Photo by me.

While I usually never feel guilty about grabbing my daily coffee I have started to now consider the affects my actions are having on the environment, as should everyone else. One of the things that a lot of places have started to do is ban plastic straws. Now while this is a positive change, it isn't really doing much in the long run. One of the things that my local coffee shop does is they allow you to put your coffee in your own reusable cup. Now when doing this you feel as though you are helping out big time because you aren't using that plastic cup, but if you aren't someone else is going to. The only way for this to really make a difference is for the consumption of single use products to really stop as a whole, or as least drastically reduce. Another positive impact you can do is buy shade-grown coffee, which helps battle the deforestation issue, and really just learn how to properly dispose of your coffee grounds.