https://gizmodo.com/lgs-new-instant-coffee-machine-mixes-two-pods-and-gener-1850658867
Its Nasa-inspired design also looks like the Apollo lunar lander is relieving itself in your coffee cup.
Especially for stuff like this, where the pods could easily (and often are) just replaced with stainless steel strainers + standard compostible paper filter liners that you load up with a tablespoon from a traditional container.
that you load up with a tablespoon from a traditional container
The point of the pods is to make money from people with two seconds to make their coffee. Yes, it's wasteful and expensive, but that's the point. You can make great coffee over an open fire. Or in a basic French press.
“So you can craft your own unique blend of coffee flavours.” You can mix mild bran with strong bran. For a deliciously unique medium bran flavour.
These pods could still be made from plant based alternatives and be compostables. Nothing about this needs to be plastic.
The companies have to be forced to do that, we all well know they won’t otherwise.
I hate typing this because it gives Nestle the slightest shred of credit. Their pods are aluminum and recyclable. Keurig k-cups started off as non-recyclable plastic but have now switched to some kind of, apparently, recyclable plastic...supposedly. Doesn't make the use of pods much better but it's not nothing.
Aren’t you supposed to rip off the top, empty out the coffee into your compost/garbage, and then recycle the pod? Or you can drop them off at a store where they sit for a couple day until the coffee starts to rot and the whole thing gets shipped to Nespresso where they probably throw it in a a landfill.
The aluminum cups can simply be melted down. The used coffee grounds will simply burn off in the process.
There is merit to the huge variety of flavour combinations you could get from mixing two pods together, I do that quite often with whole coffee beans myself depending on what I feel like drinking. You could keep a dozen different pods stocked and make 66 combos from them.
Which you could also do by brewing two pods back to back with a regular pod machine, but I guess that would be too much effort.
But like, everytime I've had Nespresso coffee, it never tasted that noticeably different between varieties. So it's not like you're gonna be getting much out of that.
And with all the variability they pitch, like, why not get a home espresso machine for cheaper?
I'll keep my French press, thanks. The only waste is coffee grounds which I use for compost.
I've always been blown away by these machines. We figured out the espresso machine 100 years ago. Modern ones can hold the beans, grind them, put the grinds in a porta filter (aka reusable k cup) and extract your single dose coffee.
Already invented in super auto machines.
And yet here we are.
Guys, go to Costco, get a super auto and a bag of beans. Boom you can press a button in the morning and your coffee is made.
I do wonder how much waste a pod generates vs a bag of coffee beans. Like, if you weigh an empty bag of beans, it's a lot of material. I wish more roasters would switch to compostable bags, but of course they're more expensive and probably don't keep the coffee as fresh.
Hmmm the roaster I use always has compostable bags, I hadn't even thought of buying any that aren't compostable. Along with using a french press, it's pretty much the closest I can get to sustainable with good coffee. I just compost the coffee grounds separately from the rest.
Are you sure the bag is compostable? The paper bags are often lined with plastic inside.
Edit:
Interesting. I'll look out for these:
https://elevatepackaging.com/8oz-kraft-compostable-stand-up-pouch-with-valve/
They're quite literally plan brown paper bags, no plastic or wax. But we get it ground there and transfer immediately to a tin we use to keep coffee in.