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Why You Should Stop Using K-Cups Immediately
By DEMETRA NIKOLAKAKIS
When you make a batch of coffee with a drip coffee maker or espresso machine, you're usually left with biodegradable coffee grounds, and disposable paper filters are generally biodegradable as well. However, making coffee with a Keurig machine leaves you with a tiny pod that's hard to responsibly dispose of.
Keurig does claim that some of their pods are recyclable, but the cups can only be recycled after each component has been separated and washed, which undermines their alleged convenience. Keurig's claims that K-Cups are recyclable encourages users to throw their unwashed pods directly into the recycling bin, contaminating recyclable resources.
Almost all types of plastic — including those that we generally consider to be safe — can leak chemicals that act like estrogen, which leads to all kinds of health problems. Though we cannot know the exact effects of non-recyclable K-Cup plastics without testing them, the Annals of the National Institute of Hygiene's study found that polypropylene (the stuff recyclable K-Cups are made of) leached significant amounts of estrogen despite being BPA free.