Keurig Plastic K-Cups Are Killing Us

By Joel D. Joseph. Mr. Joseph is the

founder of www.waragainstplastic.com.

I have always thought that people who used Keurig K-Cups, those little plastic containers of coffee, were lazy. How hard is it to brew a cup of coffee? I have learned that heating plastic cups to make coffee leaches plastic particles and other contaminants into your body. Recent studies have shown that humans have plastic in their brains, arteries and other body parts. The human brain may contain up to a spoon’s worth of tiny plastic shards—not a spoonful, but the same weight (about seven grams) as a plastic spoon, according to new findings published in the journal Nature Medicine (February 24, 2025).

The researchers also found much higher levels of microplastics in brain tissue than in liver and kidney tissue. And microplastic concentrations were also higher in the brains of deceased patients who had been diagnosed with dementia compared to the brains of deceased individuals without dementia.

Keurig manufacturers plastic K-Cups. Other coffee companies make K-Cups that fit Keurig coffee machines including Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, Lavazza, Dunkin, Tully’s, Green Mountain, Gevalia, Peet’s and many others.

Plastic K-Cups release harmful chemicals like bisphenol A (BPA), Bisphenol F (BPF) and Bisphenol S (BPS) when exposed to hot water during brewing. These chemicals, found in plastics, can leach into the coffee and potentially disrupt hormones and pose other health risks. Additionally, microplastics from the K-Cup's plastic components end up in the brewed coffee.

It's estimated that 20 billion K-Cups are disposed of worldwide annually, which translates into approximately 40 million pods per day. These single-use plastic pods significantly contribute to landfill waste, taking centuries to decompose and releasing harmful chemicals. The rising global demand for K-Cups is also leading to a corresponding increase in waste, with the annual footprint of discarded pods estimated to be more than 600,000 tons.

K-Cups are often made of mixed materials (plastic and aluminum) which are difficult to recycle, especially for the average consumer. Even though Keurig promotes plastic K-cups as recyclable, many consumers find it difficult to separate the components of K-Cups, leading to improper disposal in landfills.

The Securities and Exchange Commission Charged Keurig with Filing Inaccurate Annual Reports Regarding its Sales of K-Cups

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Keurig with filing inaccurate annual reports with the SEC and claimed that Keurig's statements regarding its tests validating that K-Cups could be “effectively recycled,” without any qualification, were incomplete and inaccurate. One September 10, 2024, the SEC fined Keurig Dr Pepper $1.5 million for misleading statements about the recyclability of its K-Cup pods. This was a slap on the wrist for a multi-billion dollar company. The SEC alleged that Keurig made incomplete and inaccurate statements in its annual reports regarding the recyclability of its K-Cup products. Specifically, the SEC found that Keurig did not disclose that two major recycling companies had expressed significant negative feedback about the feasibility of recycling the pods curbside.

Protect Yourself

You can easily make a single cup of coffee with a coffee filter, coffee and a pour-over coffee dripper. You will not be ingesting plastic particles if you use a paper coffee filter. Some companies make metal filters that don’t require a paper filter. Use a metal or ceramic dripper. If you are considering switching to tea, make sure that the “silk-like” tea bag is not made out of plastic.

Cambio Roasters is the first company to make aluminum K-cups. The founder, Kevin Hartley, formerly worked for Keurig. Aluminum K-cups don’t leach plastic and are more easily recycled. These pods fit into Keurig coffeemakers.

Nespresso coffee machines, a competitor of Keurig, are made to be used with Nespresso-designed aluminum pods. Stop using plastic K-cups. If you want a single-cup coffee maker, consider switching to Nespresso, or use Cambio Roasters aluminum K-Cups in your Keurig machine.

A Call to Action

I am filing complaints against Keurig and trying to convince them to switch from plastic K-Cups to aluminum K-Cups. I have given Keurig notice that it will be sued under California law for failing to disclose the harmful health risks and the harm caused to the environment. In addition, I will file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission concerning Keurig’s failure to disclose the harm to consumers that plastic K-Cups are causing.

Join our war against plastic on our website, www.waragainstplastic.com. You can also help the cause by supporting us at https://gofund.me/baf4b7f3.

media

August 1, 2023

An Open Letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom

By Joel D. Joseph

(Mr. Joseph is CEO of the California Association for Recycling All Trash (CARAT) and author of Plastic Pollution Solution)

Dear Governor Newsom,

California is often on the leading edge of technology in the world. If California were a nation, it would have the fifth largest economy in the world, ahead of France, Italy, the UK and India. California claims to be a green economy with the largest solar power capacity of any state by far. It produces 31,871 megawatts of solar power annually, the equivalent of 8.5 million homes. It also produces an addition 5.8 megawatts of wind power.

California, along with nine other states, requires that deposits be paid on plastic, glass and metal bottles and cans. States with deposit laws have much higher recycling rates than states without these bottle deposit laws. California requires all grocery stores to charge a deposit fee and to accept the return of these bottles and repay customers’ deposits. During the pandemic, most stores stopped accepting the returns of bottles and cans. The California Association for Recycling All Trash (CARAT) has persuaded, litigated and pressured more than 1,000 grocery stores to comply with California’s established recycling laws.

But California’s bottle recycling law has a very large loophole that allows more than 800 stores in California to ignore the recycling laws. Current law allows stores to pay a fee of $100 per store per day not to comply with the law. This “so called” penalty allows these companies to pay $36,500 per store per year to avoid mandated recycling.

The California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery received $29,309,500 in 2022 from stores who refused to accept the returns of bottles and cans. CARAT obtained this information from the Department of Resources Recycling with a California Public Records Act request. This is comparable to the federal Freedom of Information Act.

The California Department of Resources Recycling has done little to enforce recycling laws and is comfortable to provide exemptions for these legal bribery payments. The Department sued CVS and recovered a fine of $3.6 million, but CVS still does not accept the return of bottles and cans. It appears that the Resources Recycling Department only cares about the money.

Leading the list of scofflaw companies is Whole Foods, the chain of providers of allegedly health and environmentally conscious products. Whole Foods paid the Recycling Department $1.752 million last year to avoid compliance with recycling laws. Trader Joe’s paid a similar amount. Costco and Ralphs each paid $1.168 million to skirt the law.

Instead of paying these fines, companies could have purchased a reverse vending machine. Kansmacker Industries of Michigan makes a reverse vending machine that accepts bottles and cans for redemption and issues a credit to customers to use at their stores. The machines compress the bottles and cans and makes recycling easier. These machines cost $17,000 each, less than half the fine that these stores pay per year for not recycling. In addition, stores would benefit because customers typically come back into the store to redeem bottle and cans and are issued a credit to buy more items at the store.

I call upon the State of California to amend its bottle deposit law by deleting the loophole that allows stores to buy their way out of compliance. Michigan has a deposit of 10 cents for small bottles and 20 cents for large ones, twice the rate paid in California. Michigan also has the highest recycling rate in the country because of its higher deposits. California has not changed the deposit amount in more than 30 years. I think that it is about time that California raised the deposit on bottles and cans so that we can reduce plastic waste. As a side benefit, homeless people, and others can and will help clean up streets littered with bottles and cans while earning some additional pocket money.