Nearly every office or business in Western Hemisphere, and a lot of
other places on earth as well, has at least one coffee pot percolating
several times a day. Some estimates state that each year Americans
consume 100 Billion cups of coffee ("Go Green, Live Rich," David Bach).
Other sources suggest that the US coffee market is as high as $18
billion per year (e-importz.com).
No matter what the coffee consumption statistics tell us, it's easy to
see in our own daily observations in businesses and offices everywhere
that the world thirst for coffee is huge. Like any human endeavor of
large scale, all that coffee consumption has consequences in the
natural world.
Each year, hundreds of tons of expended coffee grounds
fill our landfills or sewage treatment plants. An infathomable 14.4
billion to-go paper cups are used to serve coffee drinks yearly (Bach).
And hundreds of millions of gallons of water are wasted in unconsumed
pots of coffee.
Even more tragically, over 60% of the 6 million acres of land used to
produce coffee beans have been stripped of their tree cover since the
early 1970s according to eartheasy.com. Traditionally, the coffee plant
has been a shade-growing plant that was largely intolerant of direct
sunlight. Industrial agriculture efforts to develop hybrid coffee
plants that produce well in full sun, resulting in wholesale stripping
the rainforest ecosystems where coffee was produced. Unfortunately, the
monoculture methods of coffee farming resulted in a number of problems,
resulting in the need for large amounts of chemical fertilizers,
insecticides, and herbicides.
In addition, a great deal of the
rainforest flora and fauna has been negatively impacted by both habitat
destruction and contamination with agricultural chemicals.
Our demand for our caffeine fix is unlikely to change in the near
future, so what can you do to green up your own coffee habit and the
coffee habit of your business?
Here are some simple ideas to
lessen the global impact of your coffee cup...
- Pay attention
to coffee labels:
The number of coffee
certification labels grows nearly every day, but the big ones to look
for are shade grown, organic, and fair trade. It is possible to find
coffee that holds each of these labels.
- Shade grown
simply means that the coffee plants that produced the beans in question
used traditional methods of growing the plants beneath a rainforest
canopy. The shade growing methods require less use of chemicals,
fertilizers, and far less habitat destruction.
- Organic
coffee, like all certified organic products, is grown without the use
of chemical fertilizers, chemical pesticides, or other chemical
treatments in processing. Many organic coffees will also be shade grown.
- Fair trade
coffee refers to socially sustainable coffee production methods. In
recent history, many small and usually poor coffee growers have fallen
victim to predatory business practices by coffee bean processing
companies. Fair trade certification gives some assurance that the
farmers who originally produced the product were paid a fair price and
were not victims of the coffee growing system.
- Get reusable
coffee cups and mugs. The US uses enough paper coffee cups
in a year to encircle the earth five times when placed end-to-end.
Glass mugs and reusable travel mugs for your coffee may involve a small
additional effort or planning, but clearly it is the right decision for
the environment. In addition, many coffee shops will give patrons a
discount when they provide their own travel mugs or use glass mugs
in-house.
- Use expended
coffee grounds in your compost. Coffee grounds are high in
nutrients and make a great addition you your compost. If you do not
have a compost, simply add the grounds to flower beds as they are. You
can even broadcast grounds across a lawn to take advantage of
fertilizing properties of this waste product. Starbucks has begun
offering bags of used grounds to patrons free of charge for use in
gardens and flower beds.
- Don't dump it
out. When your coffee pot isn't emptied, don't throw that
thick dark goop in the bottom of the pot down the drain. You can add a
little water to leftover coffee and use it to water indoor (or outdoor)
plants. Coffee grounds make a great fertilizer, and the liquid leftover
coffee is a liquid fertilizer as well. Just make certain that the
coffee is cool before dumping it onto your plants!
