Nespresso garbage¶
“This is our Latissima model colored in Mysterious Black. With removable milk-storage, 1.2 liter water-tank and adjustable support for Latte Macchiato glasses!” Now I got caught in a sales situation. In front of me a well dressed man in a suit with slick hair and a winner-smile. In fact, I just wanted to have a look at the store, because I passed a Nespresso shop by chance. Nespresso - that’s the coffee George Clooney is sipping as well. Did I say “shop”? I’m sorry, Nespresso Boutique!. I’d rather say Nespresso Temple. The premises look very much alike a jeweller. Wherever you’re looking: tropical softwoods, noble metal and palm trees. There are also two employees opening the doors for the customers. Obviously, every hour coffee with a value of several million is being handled here every hour. All over the place there are shiny, metallic Nespresso capsules piling up like gold bars in Fort Know. Man! It’s Monday 10AM and it’s busy as hell. Wait a second, I am the only customer!? All the other people are staff… . Eight employees spread over four cash points. Three at the Nespresso Cafe-Bar. Two in front of the Nespresso Club room and eight people in front of the Nespresso Discovery Wall. Awesome, right? Discovery wall - that’s exactly where I’m standing, because here’s a rack with coffee machines. But it’s no ordinary coffee that’s being sold here. Here’s the luxury fleet of the world-wide operating hot beverages. Here coffee is not being sold, but being worshiped in its most modern design. The whole presentation looks sacral. Did you know you have to be a member of the Nespresso Club before you’re allowed to order the coffee from the Internet? Maybe I have to image Nespresso as some kind of religious community instead? Like Scientology? Where you have to drink your way up. From a simple Coffee-adopter over the keeper of the holy sugar-spoon up to the high priest of caffeination.
The salesman recites the range of products in a way that reminds me of an Italian aria: “We’ve got three types of Lungo: Fortissio Lungo, Vivalto Lungo and Finezzo Lungo. And ten Espressi: Arpeggio, Roma, Livanto, Capriccio, Volluto, Cosi, Indriya, Rosabaya, Dulsao und Ristretto.” I pause: “What? The coffee is called Rosetto? That doesn’t sound that tasty to be honest!” Patently I’m being corrected: “Ristretto! One of the most famous Grands Crus.”. He uses “Grands Crus” as casual as a wine steward who has worked for decades in Bordeaux. I answer: “Great! Do you also have a nice, easy coffee late vintage from Rheingau? Or an 1974 Mokka de Pomeroi?” I face an expressionless man. He didn’t get this one.
Nestlè got the idea of portioned coffee first - in the eighties. But the time wasn’t ripe, the greenies were in power. If a big corporation from Switzerland had opened shops with Teakwood counter in Germany, it would have most probably been blown up by environmentalists. Today it’s a billion-dollar business. Naturally, coffee in portions fits perfectly in our modern lifestyle.: The quick coffee-shot for the trendy metropolitan single between a business meeting and an after-work-party. Nestlé has freed coffee from the yoke of coffee parties where it vegetated being captured between Rosenthal cups on table-clothes and under the nagging of varices haunted old women. I ask the salesman how much one bar of capsules costs. “10 capsule about 3.50 EUR!” I quickly estimate in my head: ” That means 35 cent per piece. With ca. 6 gram of coffee per piece that’s about ..” I call out exited: “Wicked, that’s only 60 EUR per kilo.” He beams at me. Irony he obviously doesn’t understand either.
Are these guys sane? For 60 EUR I usually get wild, handpicked jungle-coffee with a Green-premium seal, that has been traded so fairly that the Ethiopian coffee-picker could send his kids to Berlin to study Theater-Science. But I’m interested in something else as well and turn back to the salesman: “Those Aluminum-capsules - is it really necessary?” I sense a quick and nervous tremor about his left eyebrow. Carefully he answers: “Aluminum is the best material for keeping the natural coffee flavor!” I answer resolute: “Well, according to Nespresso there are about 12300 Nespresso-Espressi consumed per minute. With processed 1.1 gram aluminum per capsule that’s about 13.5 kilogram per minute.. 811 kilogram per hour and 19 tons a day. There are estimations of roughly about 6000 tons of metal waste caused by Nespresso. That’s as much metal as when you try to recycle the Eiffel tower.” He looks at me stunned. Arithmetic isn’t one of his skills either.
I’ve read that you need about 13000kWh electricity and 57mˆ3 water to produce one ton of primary-aluminum. Besides that there are millions of tons red mud every year. That’s the stuff that in Hungary poisoned rivers and killed off millions of fish in 2010. I look at him: “Looks like you can get fed up with your coffee.” The voice of the salesman gets a slightly whiny sound: “But aluminum the is a material that can be recycled indefinitely.” Now I’m slowly getting angry. This argument he has taken directly out of the Nespresso brochure on display with the fantastic title “Ecolaboration”. This word fits perfectly to the whole style of the shop as well, because in English even the biggest nonsense sounds fancy. I blurt out: “Indefinitely? Why not: Aluminum means the total re-feeding of scrap metal among seizure of superhuman efforts back into the national community. In addition you use 1300kWh and 1.7mˆ3 water in the recycling process. And this is, considering the fact that normal machines don’t even need aluminum in order to prepare coffee maybe a bit too much, isn’t it? This isn’t a reason to play Mr. Clean. You don’t piss into your neighbors garden and tell him how happy he should be that you’ve already defecated today, you know?” He doesn’t. Metaphors as stylistic device haven’t been on his schedule in the training.
And it’s getting even better. Nespresso promises to increase the amount of recycled aluminum used for the production of the capsules up to three times to 75%. That means currently there are about 25% recycled aluminum. Nespresso uses a material that is indefinitely good to recycle, just not by Nespresso. OK. I admit I was prepared for this talk. The voice of my counterpart starts to tremble: “But we’ve hooked up to the dual system.” Yes, Awesome, that sounds like the whole concern has joined Greenpeace. That means this stuff shall just be disposed of like everything else. That’s a visionary environmental concept. In many cities like here in Munich there are no yellow bags for the waste. Unless the federal state government attracted some kind of Hepatitis!” What he’s supposed to do with the Latin word in the last sentence you might guess.
Sure, you can bring the aluminum to the consolidated waste containers or the buyback center. That’s mind-blowingly realistic. Right then a heavily rouged Women of average age parked her car in the stopping restriction right in front of the store and teeters in wearing dark brown fur. Resources in her world are probably the places where she gets bought her diamonds when her lord and master has banged his personal secretary. This leagues Women will only visit a collection point when Gucci has come out with a bag fitting to empty Prosecco bottles. To produce waste is a lifestyle for those people and a privilege of her social position. My voice gets a sharp tune: “And what happens with the coffee?” Sweat appears on the forehead of my counterpart and flows down like condensed water from the metal chassis of a Latissima Chrome with adjustable rack. He’s scared now. He knows that if he’s giving me one more wrong answer I will spank him in front of all of his colleagues the blank butt with a rack of Nespresso capsules?. He mumbles tentative: “It’s gonna be burned during the recycling process.”
I bark: “And that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do with organic waste, right? Into the yellow bag and burn it off! Sure, the sky keeps the biggest place resources for our lifestyle waste ready. Those million of tons of coffee needs to somehow being sent back to the origin countries. The carbon dioxide transfer through the air is the most suitable one for this. And with the heated up atmosphere we can keep our Cafe Crema warm as well, or what?” The salesman breaks down, rolls over the floor in front of me and cries: “What do you want to hear from me? Of course we’re selling overpriced coffee. Of course the best way of keeping coffee flavor is the bean itself. Of course the combination of a sieving machine with a coffee grinder offers the best flavor and the best choices. Certainly Nespresso customers can switch to aluminum free alternatives as ell. My god, there are even capsules that are reusable. But we’re just not producing those!” White drivel frames his mouth like fresh milk-foam. “Very well, that’s all I wanted to know!”. I answer kindly. He has obviously learned this lecture. I’m almost feeling pity for him. But what shall I do? It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it!
I’ve translated this text from the German Futterblog in order to make it wider available. Feedback about errors,etc. is always welcome.