Many of us love a cup of coffee or tea, and I bet many of us use these to start our days off right. But have you ever wondered how your favourite hot drinks impact the environment, especially during this time of an environmental crisis? From harvesting to brewing, coffee and tea can leave quite a carbon and water footprint on the environment, particularly from coffee and tea plantations who contribute to deforestation, erosion and river pollution. In light of this, we thought we’d put together a blog to help you make some sustainable changes to your hot drink habits, from how you brew it to the cups you use, which will also save you in some money in the long run!
The environmental impact from hot drinks
In the past, coffee used to be grown and harvested under the shade of trees, which used to provide habitats for local wildlife, support soil health, and protect local communities against erosion. However, nowadays most of the coffee produced across the world is being grown under direct sunlight, meaning that deforestation has had to occur in order to make space for these coffee plantations. Unfortunately, this is happening for tea plantations across the world as well. Although the tea industry has a lower environmental impact than coffee, they both still leave long-lasting effects on our global environment.
On top of the deforestation making land more susceptible to erosion, this change to growing under direct sunlight means that farmers have to use more fertilisers and pesticides in order to compensate for the reduced soil quality and natural insect-killing birds. The increased usage of these chemicals creates other problems for local ecosystems, including the contamination of waterways and becoming more vulnerable to climate change in terms of an increase in pests and diseases from the rising temperature levels.
There are several ways you can be more sustainable and maintain your coffee and tea drinking habits, and to save some money. Some of the ways which we’ve detailed below include: buying from sustainable sources, choosing to brew your tea or coffee at home, and investing in eco-friendly containers.
Buy from sustainable sources
The biggest environmental impacts of the tea and coffee industries come from the supply chain business and the usage of containers that are rarely recycled, but this doesn’t mean you can’t make an impact at a consumer level. In order to ensure that the coffee and tea you buy makes minimal impact on the environment, and supports the local communities who rely on these industries to make a living, we recommend you buy from companies that are Rainforest Alliance or Fairtrade certified, so keep an eye out for their logos on the packaging of coffee and tea products. To help you get started, we’ve put together a list of certified brands you can find in York for you to start buying your coffee and tea from!
● Cafédirect, which you can find stocked in a wide range of stores, including Tesco, ASDA, The Co-Op, and Sainsbury’s.
● Grumpy Mule, available to buy online and in store, this brand have worked with both Fairtrade and the Rainforest Alliance to ensure their coffee is sustainably sourced.
● Dragonfly Tea, Teapigs, and Tetley are all tea brands in the UK that are certified by the Rainforest Alliance.
Start brewing at home
Brewing from home is a great way to make your coffee and tea drinking habits more sustainable. There are many other advantages from brewing your own hot drinks at home. This not only includes making your coffee and tea drinking habits more affordable, but also provides you with the perfect opportunity to try different coffee beans and tea leaves. You might find a new favourite through experimenting with home brewing!
However, when brewing from home it is important to consider the products you buy are good for the environment. For that reason, we recommend you avoid buying paper filters for your coffee as most of them are chlorine-bleached and release the toxic dioxin when decomposing in landfills, which is not only harmful for the environment but also to human health. If you are looking for paper filters, try to buy ones that are chlorine-free, but an alternative we recommend are reusable filters, which you can find in french presses and stainless steel pour-over coffee drippers! We’ve put together a list of sustainable items and techniques that can help you begin your home coffee brewing process:
● Pour over coffee, a quick and straightforward way for brewing coffee. Find out more about pour over coffee here, and take a look at this link for some affordable pour over kits!
● Fresh press, a very simple and inexpensive way to brew your coffee. Follow this blog for more information on using this method, and take a look here for affordable french presses.
● AeroPress, although very similar to the french press, this is another sustainable way you can brew your coffee. Find out more here, and take a look at some aeropresses here!
Eco-friendly containers
It’s not a secret that takeaway paper cups used by cafés and vending machines are bad for the environment - in the UK we go through approximately 7 million disposable coffee cups, hardly any of which are properly recycled. Although most shops use paper cups, which are technically recyclable, the inner plastic lining means that these cups need to be taken to specialist recycling centres, which rarely happens. These cups cause pollution right from their manufacturing, which requires a lot of fossil fuels and energy, right down to the toxins released from the hundreds of years this plastic takes to decompose. So although the usage of these cups are short, the effect they have on our environment is permanent.
But we don’t want this to stop you from treating yourself to a delicious hot drink from a café, especially on those cold mornings, which is why we’ve put together a list of some eco-friendly, reusable containers for you to invest in! There are also some sustainable schemes for you to get involved with here at the University of York, which will also save you money in the long run!
● YORCUP - the reusable coffee cup scheme available here at the University. You can buy the YORCUP for £5.00 at any outlet across campus, and as a bonus you get your first hot drink for free! Each time you use the cup, return it to any outlet to be cleaned and the cups will be stored for when you next want a hot drink. When you return your cup to an outlet, keep hold of the YORCUP sleeve and simply show this at your next order to get a new, clean YORCUP. You will also receive a 20p discount by avoiding the latte levy, which is the extra 20p charge for using disposable cups!
● There are plenty of websites where you can buy your own personal, reusable cup or mug, which will stop you from wasting money on those disposable cups in a stylish way. Some of our favourites come from Klean Kanteen insulated bottles and Chilly’s steel bottles, which you can personalise online! Another place to look is KeepCup, where you can get reusable glass coffee cups to replace those disposable coffee cups (I have one, and it’s amazing how long it keeps your tea and coffee hot!). When you bring these cups to any outlet on Campus, including the Greggs on Campus East, you save 20p by avoiding that latte levy.
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