The goal of this petition is to collect signatures from 20% of the honors college student body that favor keeping the coffee pot and hot water pot in operation due to the negative impact single serve pods have on the environment.

The Lee Honors College has been going through changes recently with Dr. Andreadis as the new Dean. Dr. Andreadis is been a wonderful addition to the honors college, with a wonderful proactive engagement with student and faculty members. One of these proactive changes is how we get our hot beverages unfortunately.

As many of you may have notice, there is a new single serve beverage machine which will soon replace our coffee pot and hot water pot.. for good. The new single serve machine provides each user with individual selections of coffee/tea in premeasured cup sizes. There is no measuring of fluid levels or cups of coffee grounds, a key point for those who are impatient and/or are bad with measurements and/or ignore community responsibilities. Once the serving is dispensed the user must take out and throw out the single serve canister. The downside to the single serve pods is that they are individual plastic containers with thick filtered prepackaged coffee grounds/loose leaf tea, with a tin foil covers which are overall not at all environmentally friendly. (Please visit side links for further information)

Estimating how much coffee and tea the students go through at the honors college each week, it is a significant level. This significant level of consumption will not decrease but will affect our environmental impact. The packaged materials will be thrown away since there is not currently any effective means of recycling them. The environmental concerns have been addressed by the Keurig corporation that produces the individual pods and machines, which can be found at the links below. A brief summary is that they are actevly pursuing how to make the individual pods environmentally friendly but as of the moment they are NOT at all environmentally friendly.

After having spoken with staff at the honors college the change seems to be on behalf of student's consumption habits of taking more than one cup at a time and it presumably is more cost effective. (High costs incur from hot chocolate consumption, not coffee, according to the office. Our student fees are NOT USED to fund coffee/tea/hot chocolate.)

I can verify from personal experiences with the single serve machine is convenient and inexpensive for the individual or small family. (I encourage you to blog your opinions) Unfortunately, convenience does not replace individual responsibility and the individual costs for a small family do not add up when applied to the scale of consumption we have at the honors college. Using the internet to calculate total savings on coffee alone, the total is $0.15. (Granted all single serve pods are coffee and not a mix. Factor in tea and hot chocolate, saving will increase.)

For a final point, we should consider the social/community factor that is involved with our coffee/hot water pots. Can you remember a time when you got the chance to engage in conversation with fellow students while waiting for the coffee pot to refill? Would you have engaged in a conversation with that person in ordinary circumstances? When there is the instant single serve machine, will there remain the level of discussion of distant peers?

I hope that through reading this petition your have asked:

If there is not an effective way of recycling these numerous containers or a substantial cost difference, why should we change how we get our hot beverages?

Should we unwillingly give up the use of a community resource?

Is new technology implementation always beneficial?

In conclusion, this petition is not arguing against change in how we get our hot beverages. Is the replacement of the coffee pot the most logical solution financially and environmentally or is there a another solution, such as limiting the amount spent on hot beverage materials? Please ask yourself if this is a change you're willing to let happen.

This survey was constructed fairly quickly so please blog feedback for correction, questions, comments, or possible alternatives to this issue.

Links