On Sustainability and Keurig

On Sustainability and Keurig

This is a blog where I write about Millennials. It's in the name, and it's in the content matter I've published thus far. This isn't a topic limited to Millennials, but I think that Sustainability is an issue that really is uniquely Millennial.

I say that because Sustainability is not just a buzzword to my generation. It is a word we were raised hearing, it is a word that is in our consciousness, and it is a word that will affect my generation like it has not affected generations past.

I've argued before that the inherent Sustainability ethos is a reason to hire Millennials. I would really like to repeat that point. For businesses who make Sustainability a priority (and let's be real about the fact that being a successful business today relies on making it a priority), hiring Millennials is a must, since a commitment to Sustainability is in every decision we make.  You may have grown up with white guilt or Catholic guilt, but we all grew up with environmental guilt.

Anyway, this is a post of an Op-Ed I wrote as an assignment for school. You may point out that I'm a little late to hating on Keurig--it has been all the rage lately in Mother Jones, The Atlantic, and in viral video land. But, the thing about this great nation, and especially in the Internet age, is that we're really good at identifying a problem, defining that problem in front of an audience, and then doing absolutely nothing about it. And I saw a chance here that I might actually be able to make some change. Now, admittedly I'm trying to do this by calling hypocrisy and embarrassing my department into ditching their Keurig--but I'm genuine in my offer to give them my old drip machine or to buy them a refillable pod. I'm not so cold as to leave these people I like without their coffee.

This is the Op-Ed:

Time to Beat the Keurig Habit and Give More Sustainable Brewing a Shot

In an hour last week, three people performed the same ritual in the office’s reception. Open the Keurig, drop in the K-cup, place the Styrofoam cup to brew into, throw away the remnants, and walk away with a hot cup of coffee. It was simple and convenient, yet the wastefulness of the K-cups (compounded by the Styrofoam) seemed in discordance with an office that just a month prior held a two-day seminar on Sustainability.

This office was the University of Denver’s Institute for Public Policy Studies, where I am a Master’s student. But this is a scene playing out in offices and homes across the world, countless times everyday. The National Coffee Association has conducted its national survey of U.S. coffee consumption, called the National Coffee Drinking Trends, since 1950, and this survey shows that use of single-cup brewing systems is on a steady rise. In 2010, just 4 percent of respondents reported drinking a coffee made in a single-cup brewer yesterday. Four years later, 29 percent reported drinking single-cup brewed coffee yesterday. In 2014, 15 percent of American households already owned a single-cup brewer, and 25 percent of households that didn’t own a single-cup brewer reported that they are likely to buy a single-cup brewer in the next six months.

The single-serving coffee maker is ubiquitous, and Keurig is by far the brand of choice. In 2014, Keurig Green Mountain sold 9.8 billion Keurig-brewed portion packs. And, despite a media storm that would have you believe that Keurig is on the decline, Keurig stock was still up 90 percent by the end of last year, and was one of the best performers on the S&P for 2014.  

Though Keurig is brewing business success, Keurig’s massive growth is an environmental nightmare. When 29 percent of the population is throwing a K-cup in the trash every day, the nation’s coffee habit creates enough waste to circle the earth more than 12 times.

The real problem is that diverting even some of this waste to recycling is near impossible. Since 95 percent of K-cups are made of a specialized plastic #7, few recycling centers will accept the cups. Even if consumers separated the few recyclable parts from the filter, grounds, and plastic foil top, those recyclable parts would likely be rejected because they are too small.

Recognition of Keurig’s environmental consequences is building steam, with recent write-ups in Mother Jones and The Atlantic, and a high production viral video, Kill the K-Cup, which has amassed over 650,000 views on its official YouTube channel and an additional 57,000 views on Vimeo.

In reaction to the uproar, Keurig Green Mountain has set three sustainability goals to achieve by 2020, including 100 percent recyclable K-Cups, reducing greenhouse gas emissions of brewed beverages 25 percent versus 2012, and achieving zero landfill waste at manufacturing and distribution facilities. This drive for sustainability in the next five years seems disingenuous following the release of Keurig’s three 2.0 brewers, which are only compatible with Keurig brand K-Cups. The 2.0’s change in technology makes it impossible for users to use their own beans, or to use more sustainable coffee pod options, such as this refillable pod by Solofill or compostable pods like those from OneCup or Club Coffee.

Even if Keurig is committed to fully recyclable pods, the deadline of 2020 seems far off considering other companies are already producing alternatives. Perhaps this deadline is far in the future because Keurig is hoping to introduce a product with the same quality as the K-Cups they already produce. However, John Sylvan, the inventor of the K-Cup, doubts it is possible to create a fully recyclable K-Cup of the same quality. Sylvan told The Atlantic this month that “no matter what they say about recycling, those things will never be recyclable.”

So, what is a person--or an office--to do? It should seem obvious by this point that Keurig is an unsustainable coffee habit. For owners of an original Keurig machine, the answer may be as easy as buying refillable pods or compostable pods by third-party producers. For those of us still sustaining ourselves on drip coffee, we may have to forego the convenience of buying a new single-cup brewer.

The most difficult challenge is recognizing that we might have to sacrifice a little convenience and reevaluate our expectations. I’m not going to dispute that single-cup brewers save time and allow a group of people the freedom not to compromise on drink selection, but weren’t we all living just fine without this extra convenience just a few years ago? Our landfills were certainly doing better without them.

As for my University’s office, I’m offering them my old drip machine, or in the case that they have an original Keurig machine, I’ll be happy to buy them a refillable pod and their first bag of gourmet beans. The wonderful thing about this problem is that tamping down waste should be easy and not too inconvenient.

The Atlantic Discusses Falling Wages for Millennials

You know this Atlantic article, "The Incredible Shrinking Incomes of Young Americans," is good because it only uses the term "Millennials" twice and does so reluctantly. Wages for this generation are falling in all fields excepting healthcare, which the author explains away as a result of the recession economy. The recession created a climate with less demand for superfluous purchases (retail and restaurants) on top of an already accelerating trend of automation and outsourcing. And thus, wages became suppressed for this generation and building a nest egg, much less buying a nest, has become unfeasible for a whole segment of the population.

I like this article for not placing the blame on us. About time. But, it's missing something I suspect but just can't prove.

I think that if you read enough about the worthlessness of an entire generation, those themes about entitlement and inability become a part of your worldview. Maybe we're not getting paid fair wages, because enough people have heard the message that we're not worth fair wages. Maybe if I weren't such a Millennial, I could expect to make more. Even in this economy.

What really makes Millennials special

Finally there's a good response to this horrible stick figure critique of Millennial entitlement and unhappiness.

Here's what's up: We're unhappy because we've been given reason to be unhappy!

I had an advising meeting with a staff member from my graduate school a few weeks ago. I was trying to front load my classes so I can graduate early and therefore with less debt. Unfortunately my school makes that near impossible to do--turns out they like collecting my tuition.

She suggested I fill my spare time with an internship. I told her I wouldn't work for free and she responded with all sincerity with a wide-eyed "Why not?"

I'm still speechless.

Sound off Boomers [and Gen X]: How many of you worked for free? How many of you worked for free after you already received your Bachelor's? How many of you worked for free and assumed that position would not get you a job at that company/organization?

Now, how many of you are willing to hire a student or recent grad and pay them nothing, even though this asinine practice was never expected of you when you were young?

Employ a Millennial! You don't actually have to pay them!

I actually like this piece in the Atlantic, 25 is the new 21. It brings up the sad truth that even the successful and better-financed of the Millennial generation are dependent upon mom and dad as they begin their lives. It must be a great time to be an employer. College graduates are a dime a dozen, and you can get away with underpaying them because thankfully their parents are willing to step in for living expenses. Really, though, I think the issue here is with a cultural myth that tells young people that everybody should go to college, regardless of the expense, and expect a return.

I was sold a promise that with a college degree, I would out-earn my less-educated peers. I'm still waiting for the return on that investment. President Obama is still trying to tell me that as a Millennial, the most important thing he can do for me is make sure I can get a college education.

I think that in light of our Millennial job crisis--too few jobs, too low wages, too much college debt--it's time to start considering the real problem. There aren't too few college graduates; there are too many.

Here's what's up: half of college graduates are working jobs that don't require a college degree. That's because only 35 percent of jobs require a bachelor's degree. That means that 65 percent of jobs don't require a four-year degree!

So why the big push to go to college? Well, Sallie Mae's doing pretty well. I sure would love to stumble into an industry where the government pays me subsidized credit on top of the millions (billions) I'm charging my clients.

My point? 25 doesn't have to be the new 21. If we as a society can step back and align our educational values with the job market, we might see a country where young people aren't held hostage by a never-ending adolescence.

U.S. News Says What I've Been Saying All Along

The news was good today for Millennials.

The U.S. News and World Report today released a report showing Millennials are motivated researchers who want to make smart life decisions.

While they are financially burdened, they remain optimistic.

The most important take-away from this release? The Director of Marketing for U.S. news and the author of the report has discovered that "Millennials are not just interested in cat videos and celebrity gossip." This is news to me.

Why Women Can't Have It All: The Unique Challenge for Generations X, Y and Z

EDIT 10/14
This just in! Apple and Facebook now pay to freeze their employees' eggs. Women of Apple and Facebook, now you can have it all!

I recently saw this 2012 Atlantic cover story. I'm two years behind, so that means that it's had plenty of time for reading and dissecting on the internet and Anne-Marie Slaughter herself followed up with it earlier this year. I'm really wondering how I missed this the first time around (or have utterly forgotten about reading it), considering it was the most "liked" Atlantic story ever on their website.

Dr. Slaughter's thesis goes like this: In the United States, women experience a high degree of reverence and also monitoring during pregnancy, but after a baby is born, a woman's experience of motherhood goes unsupported throughout her offspring's childhood. A lack of [paid] parental leave, an arcane school schedule, inflexible work scheduling with ever-increasing hours, and the socialized (and perhaps biological) need for women to "be there" for their children all help to create a structure that makes it impossible for women to have both a successful career and successful home life. To the detriment of her family, says Dr. Slaughter, she has been ignoring the blatant truth that women can't have it all--and it took the wisdom of younger generations to point out this truth.

It's not all hopeless. A redefinition of career success, policy implementation, and demographic shifts toward female leadership in government and business can address the issue. As far as workplace and government policy goes, Dr. Slaughter makes some concrete suggestions: (1) use technology to to limit work hours and travel; (2) leave avenues open for promotion and tenure to women who take parental leave by extending windows of opportunity and evaluation; (3) enact family leave policies that provide generous money and time following the birth of a child; (4) make family-work balance the priority of men by extending these same considerations to men.

This is all fine and well. How I'm going to launch my career and my family at the same time is literally an issue that keeps me up at night. But, Dr. Slaughter failed to realize that the problem of work-life balance will absolutely be worse for the upcoming Generations X, Y, and Z. The structural solutions to this issue will be much more drastic than planning for and around children.

At age 56, Dr. Slaughter is a Baby Boomer. The Silent Generation (also called the Lucky Few or Luckiest Generation) started the Baby Boom by having babies earlier than the generation before them. At age 20, 29.4 percent of women were already mothers, and by age 29, 82.8 percent of women were mothers. I can't find on the internet the birth dates of Dr. Slaughter's parents nor the exact year of birth for her firstborn--though if he was 14 or 15 in 2011 when she resigned her position, he was born either 1996 or 1997. So, given these assumptions, I would guess that when her first child was born in the 1990s, Dr. Slaughter's parents were between the ages of 58 and 66.

Birth trends have changed drastically since the Boomers were born to the Silents. Boomers started having babies older. At age 20, 25.3 percent of Baby Boomers were mothers. By age 28, 67.2 percent of Boomer women were mothers. Baby Boomers started their families later, and then continued having babies at later ages than their parents.

So, what does this mean? Well, for Dr. Slaughter's generation, the burden of aging parents was concurrent with their children's adolescence. This has two implications. First, Boomers as a generation were able to use grandparent support (if geographically possible) for childcare needs. They could rely on the older generation to still be young enough to take care of the Boomers' young children. Second, as the Boomers' children aged and needed less direct parental supervision--tweens and teens as opposed to babies or toddlers--Boomers' could afford to allocate time to supporting their aging parents.

This will not be the case for Generations X, Y, and Z. Maternal age has continued to increase and these generations will face the challenges incurred by aging parents concurrent with their children's most time-intensive younger years. That is, Generations X, Y, and Z were likely born to parents in their late 20s, 30s, or even 40s. They are also likely to be starting their families in their late 20s, 30s, or 40s. So, this generation will have both an infant and parents entering old age. Using myself as anecdata, if I have my first child at age 35, my parents and in-laws will range from 69-73 years old.

So, my parents and in-laws will be drastically older than the Boomers' parents when they had kids. That means that I'll be taking on some caregiver role earlier than the Boomers did for their parents. This effect will be compounded too for Generations X and Y, because Baby Boomers are in poorer health than the Silent Generation.

This has been a lot of birth rate trend discussion to get to my point, which is this: going forward, it is imperative that policy support younger generations in taking care of the aging Boomers. Family policy cannot have a singular focus on babies and children. It needs to support Generations X, Y, and Z by also implementing a much more expansive (and humane) eldercare system. 

Younger generations will need more support than previous generations for family policy, because the care structure is shifting. Instead of relying on grandparents for support in their children's formative years, more parents will be juggling the care of their toddlers and their parents.

Anne-Marie Slaughter is correct; women face structural discrimination that prevents them from achieving the mythical work-family balance. However, her policy suggestions miss the greatest challenge for generations moving forward, dual care-giving.

Millennials are Out, Gen Z is In

Millennials are Out, Gen Z is In

According to this Mashable post featuring an Infographic from Marketo, "Millennials are so last year." I'm reading that first line thinking, finally, we get to take a break from getting ragged on. Step up new youth and take the criticism!

And boy did Mashable/Marketo let them have it!

• Gen Z is the biggest chunk of the population, pushing Millennials down to spot #2
• Gen Z is "mature, self-directed, and resourceful"
• Gen Z is full of "adept researchers"
• Gen Z is composed of "driven workers," with 76% dreaming of their hobbies becoming their full time jobs, compared to only 50% of lazy Millennials
• Gen Z are basically all "do-gooders," worrying about humanity, volunteering, and aspiring to jobs that will impact the world
• Gen Z creates, whereas Millenials simply share
• Gen Z is future-focused, whereas Millennials are present-focused
• Gen Z are realists, unlike those heads-in-the-clouds Millennial optimists
• Gen Z wants to work for success, while Millennials are still waiting to be discovered.

I sure am glad Mashable really let those young whippersnappers have it. After all, Millennials have been the brunt of the joke for too long now! It's time for a new whipping boy!