The company likes to tout the fact that the cups help you waste less coffee (and water), savings that seem minimal when you consider how much water (and energy and petroleum) is used to make the plastic in the cups. Keurig does sell a reusable mesh K-cup (which alone costs $15), which you can fill with your own finely ground coffee, and like Nespresso, the company now has a program that allows people to return their used cups by mail, but the process is complicated and expensive.
With parent company Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Keurig says it’s working on developing a recyclable cup, but a company called Crazy Cups (crazycups.com) might have beat them to the punch, claiming its new K-cups ($18.60 for 20) are the world’s first recyclable version. (To recycle them, you have to dissect the cup into three parts — aluminum lid, filter and plastic cup — and recycle individually.) Perhaps the best option on the market right now is from San Francisco Bay Coffee (sanfranciscobaycoffee.com), which sells single-serve OneCups ($6.99 for 12) that are 97 percent biodegradable. I can’t attest to the taste of the coffee, but biodegradable beats recyclable almost any day of the week.
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