Welcome to Spotlight.
I’m Liz Waid.
And I’m Adam Navis.
Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting.
It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
It seems like a normal day at the office.
But suddenly, the day turns frightening.
People in the office hear shouting and crashes.
They feel the ground shake.
Then, a huge creature comes.
It is taller than the office building.
It is made of small, plastic containers.
The creature comes with ships from outer space.
The ships are shooting the plastic containers at the city.
They are destroying it.
This story is from a short internet film called “Kill the K-Cup.”
The huge creature was made of K-Cups.
K-Cups are small, plastic pod containers.
They contain dry, fresh coffee.
K-cups are just one kind of coffee pod.
But there are many different kinds.
People put coffee pods into a special machine.
In less than one minute, the machine fills a cup with hot coffee.
Coffee pods are fast and easy.
More and more people are using them everywhere in the world.
But many people believe that they harm the earth.
Today’s Spotlight is on coffee pods.
Coffee pods have become extremely popular around the world.
For example, from 2009 to 2014, sales of coffee pod machines in Asia increased by 300 percent.
In Singapore, sales increased by 600 percent!
So why do people like coffee pods so much?
One reason is that they are fast.
But they are also fresh.
Another popular kind of coffee is instant coffee.
People mix it with hot water to make coffee quickly.
But many people do not like the taste of instant coffee because they like fresh coffee better.
Coffee pods make fresh cups of coffee almost as quickly as instant coffee.
Coffee pods can also waste less coffee.
When people make fresh coffee the usual way, they usually use a coffee pot.
Coffee pots make a few cups of coffee at a time.
Often people do not drink all of the coffee from the pot.
They throw the extra coffee away.
This wastes water.
By using less coffee and less water, coffee pods can have a positive effect on the environment.
But there is one major problem: the material waste.
People use pods one single time.
Then they throw them away.
For example, the K-cup is one kind of coffee pod.
In 2010, people bought three million K-Cups.
In 2015, they bought nine billion.
Many other companies also sell coffee pods.
And their sales are also growing.
Almost all of these coffee pods were thrown away.
A used pod usually contains three different parts.
First, there is the part the pod is made of.
This is often made of complex plastic.
Second, each pod usually has an aluminum top.
Third, a used pod contains wet coffee remains.
A person must take the time to separate the plastic, aluminum and coffee remains.
Many people do not have the desire to do this.
And even if a person does separate the parts, there are very few places that will recycle
and process them.
Many people are concerned by the waste that coffee pods create.
The government of Hamburg, Germany made it illegal for government offices to spend money
on coffee pods.
Jan Dube is from the Hamburg Department of Environment and Energy.
He said,
“It is six grams of coffee that uses three grams of material.
We in Hamburg thought these should not be bought with tax-payer money.”
Remember the short film, “Kill the K-Cup”, from the beginning of this program?
The “Kill the K-Cup” movement began in Canada with that internet film.
The film quickly spread across social media and internet news sites.
It seemed to make a real change.
The year after the movement began, coffee pod sales decreased for the first time.
Coffee pod makers are working to reduce waste.
K-cups are the most popular kind of coffee pod in the United States.
In 2016, the maker of K-Cup released pods that can be recycled.
And they hope to have all their pods recyclable by 2020.
Other coffee pod companies are also working to produce more earth-friendly coffee pods.
Nespresso is the most popular kind of pod coffee in Europe and Asia.
These pods are made from the metal aluminum.
Nespresso has an international recycling program.
They have recycling centers in 31 countries.
But they cannot recycle all of the coffee pods they currently produce.
Nespresso aims to be able to recycle all their pods by 2020.
But some people are trying to find their own ways to reduce coffee pod waste.
Tan Cheng Yen works for a railway building company in Malaysia.
Her office bought a coffee pod machine.
She tried to get people at her office to re-use the pods.
But the second cup of coffee from the pod did not taste as good as the first.
So they stopped re-using them.
Tan Cheng told China Daily,
“I can see there is a lot of waste.
A lot of people would recycle if it could be easy.”
If people really want to use coffee pod machines, they can also use re-usable pods.
They can buy a pod to use again and again.
People buy their own coffee and fill the pods.
So far, re-useable pods are not nearly as popular as traditional pods.
Coffee pods now seem to be a part of modern life.
They are a fast way to get fresh coffee.
There are many ways to make the pods more earth-friendly.
But is that really the issue?
Many people think it is more important to just make less waste.
Doug Leblanc is a coffee shop owner.
He is part of the “Kill the K-Cup” movement.
He told the BBC,
“In many ways we are making progress with the environment.
But in some ways we are going back 20 or 30 years.
Making coffee in plastic pods that go to waste?
There are other ways to make coffee that are better and cause less damage to the environment.”
What do you think about coffee pods?
Do you use them?
What do you think people or companies should do to reduce waste from coffee pods?
Tell us what you think.
You can leave a comment on our website or our Facebook page.
The writer of this program was Jen Hawkins.
The producer was Michio Ozaki.
The voices you heard were from the United States and the United Kingdom.
All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight.
You can listen to this program again, and read it, on the internet at www.radioenglish.net.
This program is called, ‘Coffee Pod Problems’.
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Just download our free official Spotlight English app.
We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program.
Goodbye.