Field of Science

Green Hamburg

Kudos to Hamburg, Germany's 2nd biggest city.  They decided to curtail the use of Keurig style coffee pods because of the waste they generate.  Over packaging is a serious problem, individually wrapped items within a larger package, and then within still another box or bag. Although TPP proclaimed the Keurig coffee maker the least green new appliance some time ago (couldn't find the link), its popularity has continued to rise probably because of the diversity of easy to make coffee/tea beverages, one cup at a time. What this means of course is that every 5 or 6 g of coffee or tea comes wrapped in 5-6 g of packaging (taking into account the outer packaging as well).  Such little things are almost impossible to recycle, and they quickly pile up as waste. Not many places, and certainly not cities or states in the capitalism worshipping USA would ban such a popular product and appliance. Some expensive alternatives exist; TPP's car dealership has a machine that will make upon demand several different types of coffee drinks starting with whole beans! Surprisingly the latte is quite credible. Probably too expensive for the average consumer. But this is where manufacturers feet are not being held to the fire because we all are subsidizing the Keurig product with our taxes so that some people can have convenient caffeine diversity. All products should be priced to include the cost of decommissioning the product and disposing of its waste, i.e., If the consumer pays up front, and then wasteful appliances and products would reflect their real cost to society.  Flat screen TVs are presently entering a new generation, and the newer, better models are fairly cheap, but what is happening to the old TVs? Well, the Phactors are still watching one of them. But the rest are piling up at recycling centers and no one is paying for their recycling, so your new TV was subsidized by everyone's taxes. These are costly items to recycle, and you should not be able to just throw them out. Same goes with toxic waste products. Their price should reflect the cost of their safe disposal.  You see we really don't have a capitalist system in the USA, we have a subsidized system where people and the environment pay so that products will remain cheap on the purchasing end and manufacturers won't have to deal with the messy business of dealing with the waste created by their own products, and avoid any cost that might lower their profits. So it's good to hear of a city with some guts.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Can't agree more! But it needs time to achieve the idea. At the same research chemical suppliers and related organization should work together to develop environmental and cheap material for such package needs.