The coffee industry produces an overwhelming amount of waste, with single-use plastic coffee pods as a major contributing factor. But one coffee roaster has taken matters into their own hands, finding a new way for coffee drinkers to enjoy a great cup of coffee without sacrificing our planet. In an effort to combat rising levels of plastic pods in landfills, Cambio Roasters has developed the world’s first Keurig-compatible aluminum coffee pod.
For Plastic-Free July, this coffee brand has taken its environmental efforts even further, partnering with 4Ocean to remove 1,437 pounds of plastic and trash from the oceans. Below, Kevin Hartley, co-founder and CEO of Cambio Roasters, shares more on how the company is tackling pollution on land and sea.
Tackling existing sea plastic pollution
Cambio Roasters believes tackling future plastic waste is only half the solution. Their partnership with 4Ocean helps support active plastic clean-up for plastic that’s already polluting oceans. Through this partnership, one pound of plastic is removed from oceans and rivers for every $40 coffee purchase.
“Our dream is to keep 40 million K-Cups a day out of our landfills and oceans. That’s the scale of the problem and the scale of the change we’re working toward. We love the idea that when someone buys Cambio, they’re not just drinking better coffee, they’re helping the planet too by actively removing plastic from oceans and rivers through our partnership with 4Ocean,” Hartley shares. In addition, the brand’s partnership with Earth Moth includes the sale of bracelets that help fund the ocean cleanup.
In addition to their commitment to ocean clean-up, Cambio Roasters also supports coffee-farming communities through their partnership with Food 4 Farmers. “The finest Arabica beans in the world are only grown at an average elevation of 3,500 feet or higher around the equator, and the coffee farmers’ families live on between one and three dollars U.S. per day.”At Cambio, we don’t give 1% or 0% or something. We give 20% of all our profits to struggling coffee farming families. So hopefully, when we hit our target, 60,000 fewer people a year will starve,” says Hartley.
Recycling aluminum pods
Cambio Roasters has also teamed with TerraCycle for the Cambio Roasters Free Recycling Program, a program that makes recycling easy for consumers who have limitations with their local recycling options. This partnership is designed to ensure that every aluminum coffee pod can easily be recycled. This process allows coffee drinkers to collect used pods and then request a pre-paid shipping label to drop pods in the mail and return them to TerraCycle for safe recycling. Once they arrive at TerraCycle, pods are melted down, coffee grounds are composted, and everything is recycled properly to ensure no waste.
“I’m from Vermont, and we’ve been recycling since the ‘60s,” says Hartley. “But here’s the truth: only 3% of plastics in our nation’s curbside recycling bins actually get turned into something new. The rest (97%) ends up in landfills or the ocean. That’s why we put together a dream team and launched a multi-year, multi-million-dollar innovation project to reimagine the K-Cup. We wanted to create a better coffee experience that’s also better for our small spinning planet. Cambio is now the only patented aluminum K-Cup brand compatible with Keurig® brewers because aluminum is almost infinitely recyclable. In the U.S., 97% of aluminum placed in a recycling bin actually gets reused,” he says.
