Hi. My name is Lauren Williamson, and I’m addicted to coffee.
There, I said it. Acceptance is the first step towards recovery, right?
But let’s be real. It’s not an addiction I’ll be giving up any time soon.
Although maths was never my strong point in school (my old teachers would say that’s an understatement).
While my brain didn’t thank me for the exertion, my wallet and the environment certainly did.
I figured out that I am using around three pods a day, every day of the year. Subtract a few coffee-free days and add a few double strength pick-me-ups here and there and I’m using around 1,000 pods a year.
Now, using a personal coffee machine has certainly reduced the cost of my habit but there was one thing I hadn’t really considered before- the environmental impact of my coffee consumption.
I am one of more than one million households in Australia that have a coffee pod machine.
Australians consume up to 3 million coffee capsules per day on average – enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool every 14 days. These aluminium capsules can take 150 years to biodegrade with plastic capsules taking anywhere near 500 years to break down.
That means my rubbish will still be around when my great-great-great-great grandkids come along. And that’s scary.
Originally published in Mamamia; http://bit.ly/2rS7M1Y
