Green Living
Already a tea drinker? We applaud you. If you?re a java loyalist, though, consider switching to coffee?s leafy counterpart. Some black teas have just as much caffeine as coffee, and growing tea is much greener. In fact, producing one cup of coffee requires almost 75 gallons of water. The same amount of tea requires only about 7 gallons of water, so it?s much easier on the planet (and your body). As with coffee filters, skip bagged tea and brew loose-leaf.
Tip #4: Boil Water Efficiently Both tea and French-pressed coffee require hot water, so you?ll likely need a kettle. To use energy wisely, choose an electric one (metal, not plastic) instead of the more traditional stove-top model, and don?t boil more water than you'll actually drink. Clean your kettle often to keep it efficient ? boil a mixture of distilled white vinegar and water to oust lime and calcium deposits, then rinse.
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Tips to Green your Caffeine
From the Sierra Club:
If you?re like us, you need a jolt of caffeine to start your day, especially on these cold winter mornings. You already know to buy organic, fair-trade, and shade-grown coffee and tea, so this week we?re giving you other tips for making your daily cup eco-friendlier.
Tip #1: Take a Commuter Mug
When heading out the door in the morning, grab a commuter mug to hand the barista at your favorite coffee shop; you may even get a small discount. Skip the plastic mug in favor of ceramic or stainless steel. On days when you?re in a hurry and forget the mug, check your paper cup, sleeve, and lid to see whether they can be recycled or composted.
Tip #2: Use a French Press Save yourself some money by making your coffee at home. Consider using a French press instead of a drip coffee maker -- presses don?t require a paper filter. Besides the obvious waste-decreasing benefit, no filter also means more flavor. If you tend to make coffee only for yourself, French presses are great because they?re often smaller than drip machines, so you can just brew a single serving. Tip #3: Drink Tea InsteadAlready a tea drinker? We applaud you. If you?re a java loyalist, though, consider switching to coffee?s leafy counterpart. Some black teas have just as much caffeine as coffee, and growing tea is much greener. In fact, producing one cup of coffee requires almost 75 gallons of water. The same amount of tea requires only about 7 gallons of water, so it?s much easier on the planet (and your body). As with coffee filters, skip bagged tea and brew loose-leaf.
Tip #4: Boil Water Efficiently Both tea and French-pressed coffee require hot water, so you?ll likely need a kettle. To use energy wisely, choose an electric one (metal, not plastic) instead of the more traditional stove-top model, and don?t boil more water than you'll actually drink. Clean your kettle often to keep it efficient ? boil a mixture of distilled white vinegar and water to oust lime and calcium deposits, then rinse.
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Re: Tips to Green your Caffeine
Those are good points, although French-pressing coffee can significantly raise LDL because it doesn't filter out cafestol like drip coffee does. So, while it might kind of be greener, it isn't healthier.
Source
Also, I'm not really sure why running an electric water kettle and making French press coffee is more green than running an electric coffee maker with either a permanent filter or a recyclable filter. Seems like that would be completely even on environmental benefit.
this is great, thanks!!
I desperately need to clean out my kettle, so I think I'll do the vinegar/water boiling thing today!
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Also, if you compost, you can totally compost your grounds--you can compost paper..so I'm not exactly sure why you couldn't also just compost the filter too? Of course that would assume that everyone is composting ;D Maybe this should read "Compost your grounds suckas!"
You can compost the filter. The pretty white filters most people get were bleached during processing, which leaves trace amounts in the filter fibers. Depending how strict you are about what you compost, that may not bother you. Or you might want to switch to un-bleached filters.
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We compost the grinds and filters from DH's office, he has an adorable metal can with a picture of Oscar the Grouch on it that says "dump your coffee grinds (filter and all) in here." I think the tip is more getting at it take virgin trees to make those single-use filters. DH and I avoid anything that's single use. I don't drink coffee, but he grinds fair-trade organic coffee and uses a french press, he says it's the best coffee he's ever had.
Regarding the "bad oils get trapped in the filter" or whatever, people have been drinking coffee for hundreds of years before the commerical coffee machine was invented. The nutritional wisdom changes on coffee all the time. "It's good for you, it's bad for you, it's going to kill you!" Back to "it's good for you." So I don't think anyone really knows yet what parts of coffee are good or bad.