Used coffee pods can be recycled to produce filaments for 3D printing:
An article published in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering brings good news for coffee buffs: the plastic in used coffee pods can be recycled to make filament for 3D printers, minimizing its environmental impact.
[...] "We produced new conductive and non-conductive filaments from waste polylactic acid [PLA] from used coffee machine pods. There are many applications for these filaments, including conductive parts for machinery and sensors," Bruno Campos Janegitz, a co-author of the article, told Agência FAPESP. Janegitz heads the Sensors, Nanomedicine and Nanostructured Materials Laboratory (LSNano) at UFSCar in Araras, São Paulo state.
[...] Although reusable pods exist and some suppliers promote recycling of aluminum pods, most consumers just throw used pods into the garbage bin, especially if they are made of plastic. Considering all the factors involved, calculations made by the São Paulo State Technological Research Institute (IPT) show that "a cup of pod coffee can be as much as 14 times more damaging to the environment than a cup of filter coffee".
To develop uses for this waste, the researchers produced electrochemical cells with non-conductive filaments of PLA and electrochemical sensors with conductive filaments prepared by adding carbon black to the PLA. Carbon black is a paracrystalline form of carbon that results from incomplete combustion of hydrocarbons. "The electrochemical sensors were used to determine the proportion of caffeine in black tea and arabica coffee," Janegitz explained.
Production of filament is relatively simple, he added. "We obtain the non-conductive material simply by washing and drying PLA pods, followed by hot extrusion. To obtain the conductive material, we add carbon black before heating and extrusion. The extruded material is then cooled and spooled to produce the filament of interest," he explained.
Journal Reference:
Evelyn Sigley, Cristiane Kalinke, Robert D. Crapnell, et al., Circular Economy Electrochemistry: Creating Additive Manufacturing Feedstocks for Caffeine Detection from Post-Industrial Coffee Pod Waste [open], ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2023, 11, 7, 2978–2988 https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.2c06514
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bart9h on Saturday June 10, @08:32AM (17 children)
How about not using a plastic pod for each cup of coffee you make?
Single-use plastic should have been banned a long time ago.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday June 10, @08:44AM
Yeah I can't get my head around why these things are so popular. I mean, sure; I know it's people not thinking about or not caring where their waste goes, but I hope it's much harder to be ignorant of the plastic pollution problem these days.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by inertnet on Saturday June 10, @10:51AM (10 children)
Same goes for toothpaste tubes, which could be abolished if people would bring their own refillable dispensers. I haven't seen this idea out there yet, but it could save the world tons of waste.
Coffee pods are used by a select group of simpletons, but toothpaste is used by billions of people. I guess we'll have to wait for someone to see money in this idea, because it's impossible to get off the ground as a commoner.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10, @11:36AM (8 children)
> toothpaste tubes
Are you serious? I get over a hundred uses from one large toothpaste tube, given that the amount per use is about the same volume as a large pea. It's about as far from "single use plastic" as there is (for a disposable item).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by inertnet on Saturday June 10, @11:58AM (6 children)
If you estimate on average 1 tube per month per person, that amounts to billions of tubes a month worldwide.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday June 10, @12:55PM
Why don't they make them out of metal anymore? That can be recycled then. I know--it's more expensive, but that's what regulation should be for. The caps would still present a problem. I can't think of many examples of metal screw caps on metal food or toiletry containers. Maybe they get too difficult for people to undo or other times work loose on their own to easily, but surely a compressible seal (cardboard?) solves that and stops it leaking.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10, @01:20PM (4 children)
> 1 tube per month per person
Good g*d man, how much do you use per brushing? One tube (5.5oz / 156g) of good old Pepsodent lasts me 4-5 months, brushing once a day (sometimes twice). Anything more than a dab just fills my mouth up with foam and spews all over.
Compare with plastic food packaging, which we minimize by buying a lot of fresh produce (in reused bags). The three of us recycle a box of plastic trays and clamshells (Type 1 & 2) every week and roughly a like amount of other plastic that is not taken by the local recycling.
If you want to make an impact, figure out how to cheaply separate out 5 / polypropylene from the waste or recycling stream, to make recycling this type possible https://earth911.com/home-garden/recycle-plastic-number-5/ [earth911.com]
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Saturday June 10, @11:59PM (3 children)
Over here in Europe toothpaste tubes are usually 75ml (2,64oz). Anyway, compared to coffee pods, the impact on the environment in tonnage will be orders of magnitude greater.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11, @04:45AM (2 children)
From https://craftcoffeespot.com/environmental-impact-of-coffee-pods/ [craftcoffeespot.com]
> 62 billion pods are consumed annually in North America and Europe.
From https://recyclinginternational.com/plastics/colgate-leads-toothpaste-tube-recycling-innovation/26597/ [recyclinginternational.com]
> Did you know that around 1.5 billion toothpaste tubes are discarded worldwide every year?
> In America alone, consumers use more than 400 million tubes of toothpaste annually.
Loosely based on these numbers it appears that coffee pods are a much larger problem, looks like at least 40 times more pods than tubes.
Do you have different sources that would change this?
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Sunday June 11, @01:47PM (1 child)
I had guessed that the numbers might be equal but in tonnage the tubes would 'win'. I had no idea that those pods are that popular because personally I think they simply should have been banned. But apparently a lot of people don't care much about all that unnecessary waste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11, @03:46PM
I'm not a coffee drinker, but I know many that have multiple cups/day and have seen trash baskets full of the single serve cups at different workplaces. I was a little surprised at those numbers too, expecting something more like 5:1 not ~40:1. A combination of the stimulant (drug?), convenience and marketing leads to huge pod sales.
From the tube numbers, it looks like a lot of people don't buy toothpaste, or don't brush consistently? When younger, I remember a few years when all the toothpaste tasted terrible to me and I brushed with just water--but my good dentist talked me back from that. Nothing convenient or stimulating about tooth brushing. There is some marketing for brands, but it's been a long time since I've seen a public service announcement that encourages brushing daily...
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Saturday June 10, @05:42PM
It may be the people who fell for the training in toothpaste commercials that you have to stack the paste 3 layers high across the whole brush.
They're probably furiously researching how they can teach people to re-apply after each tooth without being too obvious.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10, @02:55PM
I have always hated commercially available toothpaste with its sickly sweet minty freshness. For some years now, I have used nothing but baking soda. I keep a ceramic cup filled with baking soda in the medicine chest. To use it, sprinkle a coin-sized pile of it into the palm of your hand. Sprinkle this with drops of water until it globs into a coherent clod. Scoop the clod up with your toothbrush and scrub as usual. You get accustomed to the taste. It will save you money that you would spend on toothpaste.
No plastic required - except for the toothbrush handle.
Similarly - although this is a wealthy-man's indulgence - I have an espresso machine which uses a metal "portafilter" - for twenty years now. Grind the coffee beans. Fill the portafilter. Hit the "brew" button. In two minutes or less, you have a cup of joe without the need of plastic. Throw the used coffee grounds into the garden.
Now if only the foil that the coffee beans come in had no plastic coating, this might qualify as living sustainably.
-nostyle
--
"We're living in a plastic land - Somebody give me a hand" -Steve Miller Band, Living in the USA
(Score: 2, Disagree) by khallow on Saturday June 10, @12:50PM (4 children)
And that's what I see as the real value here. Not reducing a negligible threat to the environment, but a considerable time saving.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by acid andy on Saturday June 10, @01:01PM (3 children)
Given this is a science-focused site, how do you scientifically weigh the value of human time against the health of the natural environment? I'll give you a clue: to get the human time to appear most valuable it helps if you only take the most short term outlook. If you only care about your immediate future and immediate proximity, then perhaps there's some logic to your analysis. Look at the bigger picture and the only ludicrous extremes I'm seeing are humanity's excesses and short-sightendness.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday June 10, @02:41PM (1 child)
I think the problem is your assumption is the alternative to pod-coffee is, perhaps, silently meditating while staring at a wall contemplating the inherent evils of humanity. Which is probably just projecting anyway.
The problem is the real world alternatives to pod coffee are not enviro-neutral, they're various weird energy drinks, hopping in the car and driving and idling the engine for twenty minutes in the starbucks drivethru, shipping a pound of flavored coffee across the planet and throwing out 95% of it when it gets 'stale' from sitting around making its environmental damage 20x higher per cup (note that pods are only 14x worse for the environment than bulk filtered... so pods are a net environmental win), all kinds of really dumb ideas. Maybe they'll be like "fuck it I'll grill a steak" or they'll light piles of worn car tires on fire because they're bored, or take up smoking weed or tobac.
Then there's the seemingly infinite indirect costs of medical care. A cup of black coffee vs a cup of corn syrup soda one time is not a big effect, but over a lifetime the T2 diabetes and related obesity and heart disease impacts of drinking soda or energy drinks instead of pod coffee can damage the environment a lot more than a couple pods. What damages the environment more, tossing out a couple pods or decades of treatment of early onset T2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease and kidney dialysis from being fat? Clearly I think on average 1 in 100 people using a kidney dialysis machine for a couple decades will F the environment worse than a couple pods, so maybe on average people should drink pod coffee instead of sugary drinks, even if for 99 out of 100 the pods F the environment more than a can of soda would because the costs of sickness (costs both economically and environmentally) are incredibly high?
It is not as simple as "filter coffee, good pods bad, only the best people agree with me, and environmentalism is the new Catholic original sin guilt trip"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10, @04:20PM
> ... original sin guilt trip"
I drink water. So there!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday June 11, @04:11AM
Scientifically, right?
Has anyone shown that is a problem here? For example, if we adopt policies that save peoples' time globally over more than a human lifetime, then we're no longer talking immediate future or proximity. Maybe it's time to abandon narratives that don't accurately describe criticism?
My go to model here is that poverty correlates with high population growth. What are often perceived as excesses and short-sightedness often reduce poverty and indirectly population growth. That can have a long term environmental effect that's greatly more positive than a short term environmental policy that creates a lot of poverty.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday June 10, @02:27PM
This is terrible marketing.
So, lets greenwash, because the general public both is trained to autorespond they love it while they actually hate it when making buying decisions. Then lets abandon convenience of both the product and what its being recycled into.
Yeah that'll work great (sarcasm)
What makes pods sell: They're fresher because they're sealed which means you can have 50 flavors at work for 10 employees (back when I used to work in an old fashioned office LOL) yet instead of 50 open containers of coffee getting stale and attracting bugs its still fresh-ish and drinkable-ish. They have a conspicuous consumption niche in between importing addictive substances halfway across the planet in bulk packaging and on the other side spending $9 at Starbucks for corn syrup with a little coffee flavoring to provide employment to liberal arts degree holders now working as baristas. They are somewhat more convenient WRT automation. There's a sort of anti-greenwashing appeal "I drink quarts of soy per day and drive an electric car and vote for only the best pedophiles to lead our country so I 'deserve' a break today of some pod-coffee because on average I'm so much holier than thou so that makes it OK when I do it because I'm just sooooo good of an environmentalist"
The problem is the 'solution' does not work with any of the reasons pods sell in the paragraph above. Its just not going to work.
(Score: 2) by cykros on Sunday June 11, @01:01PM
I don't see how this is good news for coffee buffs. What self respecting coffee buff uses pods to brew their coffee? That's even worse than using pre-ground coffee.
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Tuesday June 13, @02:47PM
"as much as 14 times"
Why not just say "as much as 14,000 times", which is effectively the same thing. Either could be zero.