Coffee is easily accessible, with a Caribou or Starbucks on every corner and personal brewers in many households. The National Coffee Association estimates that the world drinks over 2.25 billion cups of coffee per year. With all that coffee comes a lot of waste, and even the smallest change can help make the coffee industry more sustainable.

The coffee industry is built on a complex supply chain, moving from farmers, traders, processors, exporters, roaster, retailers and finally to consumers. It is a multi-billion dollar industry.

Understanding where the coffee that we drink comes from allows us to take better care of the aftermath, especially in disposing of materials afterward.

Even with this flow of money, the farmers that grow the coffee plants often do not make enough revenue to support their families and farms. Also, environmental factors and the unsteady nature of coffee farming lead to struggles within the actual production.

Perfect Daily Grind, a global network for information about coffee from the farmers to the consumers, notes that the biggest challenges for coffee farmers are pests and diseases, climate change, labor shortages, fluctuations in coffee prices and unreliable incomes. It is large amounts of work for limited income and crop insecurity.

Fairtrade Foundation is one of the many companies, along with Keurig, that supports coffee farmers. They help cover production costs and establish a safety net for farmers when the market prices fall below a reasonable level.

Some of the biggest sustainability changes happen on an individual basis. Sustainable America found that one in three Americans own a single-cup brewing machine, which, despite convenience, creates ten times more waste than a traditional coffee brewer.

The individual cartridges are typically not recyclable or are thrown in the garbage after used. Even though coffee pods are still fairly new, it is estimated that cartridges could take about 200 years to decompose, according to Home Grounds. The severity of one cup taking 200 years is increased by the fact that billions of cups are being thrown in the garbage. They are filling landfills and not going away.

Keurig has addressed this by developing one new K-cup that is recyclable, and another one that is compostable. It is important for big coffee companies to start improving their products and being mindful of the waste they create. On top of that, we need to be more mindful of how we dispose of the cartridges and other waste after use, considering it only takes a little extra effort.

For traditional brewers, purchasing a reusable filter is more sustainable than using a new paper filter for each pot. Most coffee machines are sold with reusable filters, but it is important to keep in mind for older models or the few machines that still rely on paper filters.

Coffee grounds left after brewing in a K-cup or regular machine can be taken out and composted. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, composting enriches soil, helps produce beneficial bacteria, lowers methane emissions caused by landfills and lessens an individual’s carbon footprint.

Students can also be sustainable by buying a reusable travel cup or thermos. It eliminates the waste of getting a new cup with each order, similar to having a reusable water bottle instead of single use plastic bottles.

A simple solution for single serve coffee is investing in a French press. To brew coffee with a French press, the user places coarsely ground coffee in the main beaker and adds hot water, letting it sit a few minutes to steep. Then, the user presses down the plunger to filter the grounds from the liquid.

It requires more effort than inserting a K-cup and pressing start, so it is not as quick as single-serving machines. However, they are more sustainable, and a good size for a student to have in their room. Less waste is produced from French press systems, considering everything but the coffee grounds are reusable.

Even if we think we cannot make a big impact, it is still our responsibility to be sustainable. If everyone does their small part, it can amount to huge change. To help improve the Earth and the coffee industry, it is worth it to try.

Maddie Peters can be reached at pete9542@stthomas.edu.