Sustainability in your coffee cup

There is lots of discussion on the environmental impacts of drinking coffee.  For some, that means giving up coffee.  For others, that means trying to reduce the impact of the coffee you drink, although that leads to a lot of complicated choices.  Many of us really enjoy a cup or several of coffee and would like to make good choices while still enjoying the drink.   I’ve included some thoughts in this post and the attached article includes a lot of detail on certifications and choices.  

• Use re-usable cups to drink your coffee.  Instead of getting a disposable cup from the drive-through coffee ship, park, go inside, and have them fill your re-usable cup.
• When you make coffee at home, save the used coffee grounds.  They make great plant fertilizer, and this keeps the grounds out of the landfill where they will decompose to make methane.  The used grounds also make a great addition to compost. 
• Look for certifications that show the coffee is being produced in a responsible way.  There doesn’t seem to be an umbrella “this is the most sustainable, fair, responsible coffee ever” certification, but choose coffee with the certifications that are meaningful to you.  The attached article explains what some of the certifications mean.
• As the article states, how you brew your coffee can make a large difference in the sustainability aspects.  There’s a nice graph in the article that has comparison information. 

https://earth911.com/how-and-buy/the-complicated-choices-in-a-cup-of-coffee/