So I have been using a coffee press at the office because I wanted some flavored coffee (cinnamon from dunkin’ donuts) and don’t want to weird anyone out with my peculiar taste. I think my obsession with cinnamon probably extends back to when I first saw Dune as a child. The closest thing in the house to the spice was cinnamon! mmmm!
Actually, that’s not the topic of the post. I was curious about what happens to coffee grounds when you flush them down the toilet. I know you’re not supposed to put them down the drain or even in the disposal unit in your sink (I’m guilty) but at the office I’ve been flushing the grounds left over from my press. So with a little google-fu, I ended up finding this very misconceived article on “To Flush or Not To Flush“. It starts off very well with some valid points about poisoning aquatic life with chemicals down the toilet. It makes sense. However, their proposed solutions aren’t so great:
- They mention that landfills are the best place to put chemicals and medical waste products because of the plastic liners in all modern landfills. This seemed dubious to me. First I doubt that all landfills actually have this geomembrane (that’s what they call the plastic liners). Secondly, while plastics can be pretty amazing materials, they aren’t immune or inert. This means that plastics will eventually break down, they can be pierced by heavy machinery, they can leak. A little more google-fu shows some details on this from a trash presentation at a university.
- The one that really gets me is:
Placing kitty litter in empty milk container and pour liquid cleaners, or liquid medicines into it that way it will be absorbed, with no worry of contaminating the environment.
Sounds good from the outside, but think about this a little more. Kitty litter? Have you ever smelled well-used kitty litter? Smells like kitty pee, doesn’t it? Have you ever picked it up with your bare hands? No, because its wet with kitty pee and who knows what else!? This is a solution for no worry of contaminating the environment?
So what has me so riled up? Its misconceptions like these that lead to lazy environmentalism. Lazy work can often get things really messed up, maybe not at first glance, but over time I’ve come to know that lazy work just fails. What’s the point of giving someone a false sense of saving the environment? If it ends up in the landfill, and the landfill leaks into the water tables, then the aquatic environment is still threatened. These are ultimately empty measures.
(note about coffee presses: I like the idea of using a press because I use less materials (no coffee filters) and don’t waste coffee (only 1 cup at a time) or water. It also makes a pretty nice cup of coffee. The water cooler also has hot water in it in the office, and I’d hate to see all that energy expended if noone used it.)
