When I first looked into the topic of reusable coffee filters I didn’t think there would be much in it. But like nearly everything else in this complex consumer world we live in, I was mistaken.
In an earlier article I railed against the coffee industry. I stand by my words. The coffee industry is taking up far too many natural resources which would be much better employed actually growing food to feed the masses.
It is, however, hard to resist, the pick-me-up benefits early in the morning of a cup of real coffee. And assuming you are drinking shade grown, organic, fair trade coffee, the final environmentally friendly thing you can do is to use a reusable coffee filter. It is without doubt a bad thing to use standard paper disposable coffee filters. Oxygen producing trees are chopped down to make them; therefore, they can’t be good for the environment. Filters made from re-cycled are better, but they are not carbon neutral because energy went into pulping the old paper and producing the new filters.
