Coffee capsule recycling greenwash

Podback, the latest Big Business greenwash, all the usual suspects, Nestle, Starbucks, purveyors of disgusting undrinkable coffee.

Kerbside collection of coffee capsules is not the answer, it is a solution to a non-existent problem.

A couple of councils out of how many local councils? This is pissing in the wind. It is to add yet another layer of complexity to household waste collection and recycling. Households already cannot cope and are poor at recycling.

A similar scheme in New York has poor recycling success.

Nespresso machines are capable of brewing excellent coffee so long as do not use coffee from Nespresso or Starbucks.

Internally all Nespresso machines are the same, the only difference external appearance and attachment of various gadgets and gizmos.

Buy the cheapest machine. Better still, buy an Opal One, roughly double the price of the cheapest Nespresso machine.

Buy coffee from a reputable coffee roastery.

• Kiss the Hippo — compostable
• Colonna — aluminium and compostable

Compostable capsules can be dropped on the garden compost heap or food waste bin or garden waste bin.

Gadgets exist to extract spent coffee grounds from aluminium capsules. Spent coffee grounds go on the compost heap or scattered on the garden. Rinse the aluminium capsules and drop in the recycling bin.

• Councils start collecting coffee pods with recycling

10 Best Coffee Pods To Buy In 2021

Luxury eco-friendly pods to try for a guilt-free caffeine fix.

Not my choice, that of Elle.

Chances are, the past year has seen you forgo your daily commute, and with it your flat white. And while it might have saved you a few pounds, we really miss a proper barista-made brew

The good news is we’ve managed to hunt down the best coffee pods (that are eco-friendly too!) to ensure you get a great-tasting cup of coffee, without wreaking havoc on the environment.

• joint best compostable coffee pod Halo Honduras Nespresso Compatible Capsule
• joint best compostable coffee pod Kiss the Hippo Nespresso Compatible Compostable Pods

Elle that well known magazine with expertise in coffee. Er, I think not, and it shows.

This morning, an e-mal from Halo, ELLE Winner: Best Compostable Coffee Pod! Really, well let’s check it out, compared with what.

In their Top 10, Grind, Lavazza, Eden Project, which says it all, their lack of knowledge of coffee.

When see magazines, newspapers promoting the Best Coffee, Independent recently had a similar list, just ignore.

Thai mushroom and peanut noodles

Thai mushroom and peanut noodles Riverford vegan recipe box.

Ingredients: bunch of spring onions, garlic clove, 200ml can of coconut milk, Thai red curry paste, star anise, Thai red curry power, red pepper, chestnut mushrooms, spring greens, cherry tomatoes, peanut butter, noodles, optional red chilli pepper.

I will often substitute. For the red pepper a Romano red pepper from last week, for the cherry tomatoes overripe cherry tomatoes. I also substituted crunchy peanut butter as already had.

One medium, one large saucepan required.

Slice red pepper, mushrooms, garlic clove, red chilli pepper (deseed if too hot), slice spring onions, (green ends save for decoration of finished dish).

Water set to boil in the medium saucepan, to later add the noodles.

The method I changed. Instead of adding to large saucepan and frying, which I find ruins a saucepan, splosh of extra virgin cold pressed rapeseed oil, add dollop of coconut milk, half of the spring onions, garlic, Thai curry paste, curry powder, fry for about a minute, add remaining coconut milk.

Empty contents of frying pan into large saucepan.

Add star anise.

Add empty tin full of hot water to frying pan, swill around then empty into large saucepan.

Add large dollop of crunchy peanut butter to the large saucepan, stir.

Add the sliced mushrooms, tomatoes and red pepper to the large saucepan.

Add noodles to boiling water in medium saucepan.

Three minutes later add the spring greens.

After a further three minutes, add contents of medium saucepan to the large saucepan.

Serve, add green of spring onions for decorations.

Very tasty, goes well with a glass of red wine.

If I was to modify, add florets of broccoli instead of spring greens, add half a handful of raw peanuts.

Cautionary note: Despite my precautions, contents stuck and burnt to the bottom of the large saucepan. Essential to stir periodically.

• PHOTOS Thai mushroom and peanut noodles

Fragile

Moving performance by Annie Lennox of Fragile to honour Sting at the Polar Music Prize Ceremony 2017 to honour Sting.

The style very reminiscent of Billie Holiday haunting rendition of Strange Fruit.

UK has the dire Brit Awards which should have been killed off years ago.

Sweden has the Polar Music Prize Ceremony where talent is recognised and honoured.

End of April

The dunes are changed by the wind, but the desert never changes. That’s the way it will be with our love for each other. — Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Do not fight in order to prove that you are right or to impose your ideas or ideals on someone else. Accept the fight only as a way of keeping your spirit clean and your will spotless. — Paulo Coelho, Manuscript Found in Accra

Nearly every day a frost in the morning.

A very dry month. Air so dry, sucking moisture out of the ground.

• PHOTOS End of April

Lincoln coronavirus lockdown day one hundred and eleven

A cold miserable wet day.

Two sirloin teaks, £10-60, butcher kindle sliced into strips, high quality beef stroganoff.

Zero waste store has loose spices, buy as little as need. Need a pot or jar.

Too cold to sit outside Coffee Aroma.

• PHOTOS Lincoln coronavirus lockdown day one hundred and eleven

Frescopod

A Kickstarter project, a solution to a problem that does not exist, hyped on social media with misleading claims.

When I get unwanted posts on social media for a product I do not want, I am wary. When misleading claims are made, I suspect a scam.

𝗙𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗽𝗼𝗱

• 100% biodegradable & compostable waste
• 10¢ – 22¢ per cup
• Great-tasting fresh coffee
• You choose ANY coffee, unlimited variety

𝗦𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗲-𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝘀

• Non-biodegradable рIastic
• 45¢ – $1 per cup
• Mediocre “so-so” coffee
• Limited to Pods

Let us look at these claims.

Third party capsules from reputable roasteries will be high quality great tasting coffee in aluminium or compostable capsules.

• Colonna – aluminium and compostable
• Kiss the Hippo – compostable

If buy from Nespresso or cheap off the supermarket shelves, then yes, will be poor quality undrinkable coffee.

As with all things in life, you get what you pay for.

As anyone who has ever tried, if refill pods messy and waste of time.

The preparation shown is wrong and shows an appalling level of ignorance of coffee,  coffee ground who knows when, will be oxidised and stale, coffee not precisely weighed.

If filling a pod, need to invest in a quality grinder, digital scales. Why not then go all the way, a V60, Origami, Chemex swan-neck kettle or an Aeropress or French press.

The point is completely missed re capsules, and it is not convenience:

• quality coffee
• optimum grind
• optimum freshness
• accurate dose
• consistency
• oxygen free environment

To invest in this system, are reliant on the device, and for the pods to be filled.

Internally, Nespresso machines are the same, invest in the cheapest. Or better still, invest in an Opal One, roughly double the price of the cheapest Nespresso machine.

Market Rasen

Market Rasen I have never visited before, never likely to visit again.

A visit to Seven Districts halfway between Lincoln and Market Rasen. No bus stop, driver kindly dropped me off. How then to get to Market Rasen? The nearest bus stop fifteen minutes walk away a cross roads. Out of the question a death trap.

Only alternative was to walk along a country lane back to Welton to pick up a bus.

Arrival in Market Rasen I was not aware we were at the Market Square, it seemed a good place as any to alight.

A one street town, nothing open, can walk from one end to the other in a few minutes,  pubs that looked dives, but not open, the one in the square appeared to be closed until I noticed people sat out the back. The square turned into a car park subdivided with chains, ideal trip hazard. The street a carbon monoxide death trap with traffic pollution. And everywhere closed. What looked like an interesting wholefood shop, closed at 2-30. The only place open a family butcher. There was a greengrocer, closed.

The bus return to Lincoln, every hours, except the one I tried to catch not.

The A46 Lincoln to Market Rasen has one of the highest fatalities in the country, and very easy to see why.

Dips in the road, vehicles lost in the dips and not even apparent there are dips, many sharp quite literally right angle bends, and even though short sight lines idiots overtaking. If a powerful car then yes, maybe overtake, but even then of no advantage and pointless, as would simply be stuck behind the next vehicle.

At a loss why a bus stop at Snarford Crossroads as literally nothing there. From the cross roads to Seven Districts, limited sightlines, would not be seen by an oncoming vehicle until too late. Why oh why, no bus stop outside Seven Districts? It is even possible for the bus to pull off the road when heading to Market Rasen.

• PHOTOS Market Rasen

In 2013 Market Rasen was hailed as a success, a falling market town that had been turned around within a matter of months, and now heralded as a success story. What went wrong, as that was not what I found in 2021? 

Seven Districts Coffee House

A former pub located in the middle of nowhere, now a roastery and coffee shop.

Located on a busy main road, no bus stop. The nearest bus stop, a fifteen minute walk along a busy main road, a death trap.

I asked the driver would he please drop me off, which he agreed. How to get back, a problem to be solved later.

t was not possible to explore the coffee shop and roastery due to lockdown, day one hundred and eight of lockdown, but what I saw, an excellent job.

They have employed one of the best baristas in Lincoln. I was known, Hi Keith, a cappuccino?

I was offered a choice of Colombian or Ethiopian. I always let the barista choose, Colombian was recommended, so Colombian it was.

My cappuccino excellent.

The addition of a card with my cappuccino, information on the coffee, the farm, excellent idea.

What I do not like are the bags. Lincolnshire myths may be interesting but of no relevance to the coffee. Please drop Lincolnshire myths and provide information on the coffee, origin, Q grade, farm, processing, variety, altitude.

A little garden out the back, overlooking fields.

What I did no like about the garden music playing. A very bad idea, enjoy the peace and tranquillity.

The cups deserve a mention, the takeaway cups claimed to be recyclable. What does this mean?

Each of our take away cups uses what’s called ‘Earth Coating’, rather than traditional PE or PLA used on standard take away cups. This coating is made using a blend of Calcium Carbonate which fragments away from the paperboard into small particles which can be easily separated during the standard recycling process. This means they can be processed alongside standard paper recycling as if there wasn’t even a coating on them. Great news for take away cups:)

I am no fan of takeaway cups, of whatever type, the worst plastic-lined, destined for landfill or incineration, compostable may find their way to a compost heap. Far better, relax at a coffee shop with coffee served in glass or ceramic. And no way take a reusable cup to a coffee shop during a pandemic and expect it to be filled. It is to introduce an unnecessary disease vector putting staff and clientele at risk.

Recycled paper to be of value, has to be clean and dry. A dirty coffee cup?

Will they compost?

As an experiment, I have filled one with dirty water from washing up bowl, not cleaned out what remans of dried coffee. To be left overnight. Will it leak? To then be thrown on a compost heap.

How to get back? Walking along to the cross roads was unsafe, A bus unlikely to stop.

I had no choice than to walk fast along a country lane to Welton the nearest village in the hope that I would catch the next bus Lincoln to Market Rasen. I missed it. I could have caught a bus to Lincoln, but as I was half way to Market Rasen, and have never visited,  decided to wait until one turned up.

Best option, bus to coffee shop, coffee, leisurely walk back along the lane, then catch bus to Lincoln.

A bus stop is an absolute must.

• PHOTOS Seven Districts Coffee House

Lincoln coronavirus lockdown day one hundred and eight

Sunny day, but cooler than of late.

A fleeting visit to Lincoln. Bus station to market to bus station.

Sincil Street very busy.

It was then catch bus to Market Rasen to visit Seven Districts Coffee House half way in the middle of nowhere.

• PHOTOS Lincoln coronavirus lockdown day one hundred and eight