Sustainable Coffee: Our #1 problem isn't paper cups

Paper cup waste gets a lot of attention. Of course we should reduce waste wherever we can...but is it the biggest problem we need to solve?

When it comes to the carbon footprint of the average cafe or coffee shop, it turns out there are a number of other areas that have a much bigger impact - and no-one is really talking about.

Dr Adam Carr from our Coffee Science & Education Centre presents the top results from his life cycle analysis on the environmental impact of cafes & coffee shops.

In this video:
0:00 Introduction
1:29 The Results
2:58 What can we do about it
5:11 What about coffee production?

Original Articles

What we're doing about it
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[fredericl]

Are you still making those really interesting videos ? This one was made four years ago. It’s a shame if you have stopped producing them. Thank you really much.

[newfguy]

Bravo on highlighting large environmental costs of dairy. When one also considers the animal cruelty involved, it becomes defenseless to continue its usage

[annettescott]

Great video - thank you Adam! Have you done any research on the environmental impact of the cow’s milk alternatives? Would be really interested to know about that, as I have a sneaking suspicion that the increase in people using milk alternatives might end up having a really detrimental impact

[murderousmuffin]

While it is important to highlight the impact electricity and dairy products have on CO2 emissions, and I wholeheartedly agree that reducing these is important for our future, I would like to add that paper cups are still a problem. Just not to CO2 emissions.

It is actually very cheap to produce paper cups, and they don't emit that much CO2 per cup, but their problem lies in having a thin plastic coating that takes ~500 years to be broken down by normal means. And that is the true problem of these cups. They are horrible for the environment because they take a lot of time to be broken down, and are indeed responsible for the piles of waste we see in these awareness commercials.

[wochenendedestodes]

Interesting. Furthermore if you use a normal cup, ir has to be cleaned with water.... maybe that's even worse than papercup?

[lookforwardlife]

This is great. I don’t own a cafe or anything but something simple like lines in the milk steamer are those things we don’t think of be wise of course it should be there.

[jacobcirrus]

The problem is animal milk. Not all milk.