Butch Loves His Keurig . . . But Wait a Second!

   The first thing I do each morning is turn on the Keurig coffee maker and let it warm up while I’m getting dressed. I absolutely need a cup of coffee (i.e. caffeine) to get me going. I also drink at least two cups each afternoon at work, and another after my evening meal. Those empty pods end up in the trash…4 each day times 365 days equals 1,460 plastic Keurig pods a year. According to my research, 576,000 tons of these pods are discarded annually, ending up in landfills. Our storage cabinet on the back porch is also full of plastic . . . the 10 to 20 bags our groceries and other purchases come in each week. These are just two examples of plastic overuse, which begs the question to you older folks. “Do you remember the days before plastic?”

   When I started first grade in the fall of 1954, our lunchtime milk came in tiny half pint glass bottles. My folks purchased milk in gallon glass bottles with foil tops. Soft drinks . . . Coke, Pepsi, Nehi, Choc-Ola, etc. came in glass bottles, too. These bottles were returned and used again. Now all convenience stores and fast food places use Styrofoam, plastic or paper cups for soft drinks. A gallon of milk comes in a plastic container.

  When I enjoyed a fountain drink at the drug store back in the day, it was served in a glass. An ice cream sundae was dipped into a glass dish. Not any more . . . all plastic. No silverware either . . . plastic spoons are used now. Our family never ate out very often at restaurants when I was young, but when we did the food was served on glass plates. Ketchup and mustard came in glass bottles. Groceries were placed in brown paper bags.

   It seems that somewhere along the line, plastic took over many of the consumables. Items which could be recycled and used again started to disappear. Dad’s first car, after he came back from the war, was a big old Pontiac four-door that was built like a tank, and likely weighed about as much. When these cars had reached their ends, they were taken somewhere and crushed and compressed into a cube of metal, shipped to a steel mill, and melted down to be used later to make a new vehicle. The cars of today, for the most part, have a lot of plastic parts and are not near as heavy, and it’s highly unlikely the plastic components are recycled.

   Many of my childhood toys were made of cast iron or tin. My lunchbox was made of tin. My hairbrush had a wood handle and real boar hair bristles. My mattress was stuffed with feathers. Our first TV was quite heavy because it had wood, glass and metal components. I carried water to the farm animals in steel buckets. I fished with a bamboo pole and wooden lures. Our table and chairs were oak. None of our furniture was made of plastic or synthetics. Our front porch swing was wooden . . . and on and on and on. Many of these items are now considered “collectible.”

    You can likely think of many other things that have been replaced by plastic and other materials. Times change, products change, and we have all adapted. I like my Keurig. But sometimes I think of the time my mother-in-law lived with us. Each morning she turned on her coffee maker, placed a scoop of Maxwell House in a filter, and let it slowly drip, drip, drip into her coffee pot. I could smell it from anywhere in the house. No, she never used a Keurig. She didn’t have to dispose of hundreds of plastic pods each year . . . and yes, her coffee was “good to the last drop.”

 John “Butch” Dale is a retired teacher and County Sheriff. He has also been the librarian at Darlington the past 37 years, and is a well-known artist and author of local history.