by Jonathon LaRosa

 

I love my coffee so I decided to read up on it. It’s the world’s most popular commodity next to oil; the U.S. is the world’s largest importer of coffee. Hm.

 

If I head to my local Starbucks barista and enjoy one of their 40,000 or so cups of coffee served every day of the week, did you know that two full ounces of that cup of joe is straight carbon? Okay, not carbon, but the energy expended to get you that tasty beverage. That’s about 4,900 pounds of carbon each day…just for coffee.

 

Calculating a carbon footprint is kind of tricky. You have to take so many factors into account: local economy, growing year, transportation and powering all buildings and equipment involved in the production and sale of the product just to name a few.

 

And it’s still not an exact art, but the figure gives us a pretty close idea of what we’re looking at. So the question is: How much do I love my coffee?

 

I don’t have a coffee pot at home so the coffee I get is usually from Starbucks. I’ll be honest, it’s the best around…one of the few times I actually agree with the general popularity. (Not that I’m some rebel, but I am eagerly awaiting the death of pop music.)

 

295,000 tons.

 

That’s the approximate amount of carbon released into the atmosphere by Starbucks in 2003. Oh, and that’s after 81,000 tons of CO2 was stricken from the records (by Starbucks) that went toward moving the beans around the world and disposal of waste.

 

No matter how good Starbucks coffee is there is definitely ways to still enjoy a good cup without pressing the carbon footprint too deeply into our planet’s future.

 

  • Take a glance around town and ask a few caffeine jockeys which baristas support local, independent farms…and frequent them.
  • Also, find out which labels in your supermarket have traveled the least amount of miles.
  • Invest a reusable mug and save on paper/plastic waste.
  • Go organic! Yes, there are organic coffee labels out there.
  • You can still enjoy your Starbucks, but try limiting your visits to just a couple times per week, and stay in the kitchen each morning instead.
  • Use unbleached, biodegradable filters at home.

 

Coffee lovers won’t back off their coffee consumption, but they can search alternatives to lessen their environmental impact.