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OKAEE Documentation
501(c)(3) Documentation Letter 1045 Contact Information OKAEE PO Box 2382 Stillwater, OK 74076-2382 E-mail: info [at] okaee [dot] org Phone: (405) 521-2384 |
The Secret Life of CoffeeThe Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality is encouraging citizens to examine and rethink their consumption habits during the first Oklahoma Use Less Stuff Week from April 18-24, 2002. DEQ's Mary Jane Calvey announced, "The DEQ wants to provide food for thought for Oklahoma citizens about their everyday habits with our Use Less Stuff Campaign. This article examines the entire journey our morning coffee makes on its way to our cup." The following information is provided by John C. Ryan from his book, Stuff--The Secret Lives of Everyday Things.One cup of coffee takes 100 beans that grew in Columbia on a small mountain farm cleared of forest systems for cattle ranching and coffee and fruit trees. Pesticides were necessary due to the removal of birds and other insect eaters. The beans were picked by hand, the pulp is removed (2 pounds per pound of beans) and dumped into the Cauca River where it consumes oxygen needed by fish. The beans were dried in the sun and shipped to New Orleans on freighter made in Japan from Korean steel made from iron mined in Australia and fueled by Venzuelan oil. In New Orleans, the beans were roasted with oven burning natural gas from Texas-then packaged in four-layer bags made of polyethlene, nylon, aluminum foil and polyester. Finally, they were trucked to a warehouse in Oklahoma City or Tulsa and delivered by a smaller truck to your neighborhood grocery. The beans were carried out in a sealed, wax-lined paper bag and a large brown paper sack made at unbleached kraft paper mills in Oregon. One-fifth gallon of gasoline was burned during the five-mile round trip to the market. Before we can conjure up our brew, we will need a grinder. We measure beans into a disposable plastic scoop molded in New Jersey and spoon it into a grinder which was assembled in China from imported steel, aluminum, copper and plastic parts and powered by electricity generated at Ross Dam on the Skagit River in the Washington Cascades. We dump the ground coffee into a gold-plated mesh filter made in Switzerland of German steel and Russian gold and put it into a plastic and steel drip coffeemaker. Oh, yes! We must use water for our brew. Eight ounces of tap water from a processing plant is poured into a coffee pot. Originally the water came from Lake Atoka where it was pumped around 150 miles to Oklahoma City consumers. The pump was probably powered by a coal-fired electricity generating plant in Muskogee, with the coal transported to Oklahoma from Wyoming. An element heats the water to more than 200° F with power generated by an OG&E gas-fired power plant. The hot water seeps through the ground coffee and dissolves some of its oils and solids. The brew trickles into a glass carafe and is poured into a mug made in Taiwan. Later, we wash the mug using two gallons of water. If you use cream, you stir in one ounce of cream from a grain-fed dairy cow in Union City. The cow liked to wade into a stream and drink and graze on streamside grasses and willows, so the water got warmer and muddier, making life difficult for the sunfish and bass living in the stream. The two teaspoons of sugar you measured out came from cane fields (former sawgrass marshes) in Florida. Water that used to flow across these marshes and into the Everglades was drained into canals and sent directly to the ocean or irrigated fields, where it picked up nutrients and pesticides. Populations of all vertebrates-from turtles to storks-have fallen 75 to 95 percent in Everglades National Park. When examining the waste involved, we find that the cow's manure was rich in nitrogen and phosphorus. Since the soils of the cow pasture were unable to absorb all the manure, it washed up into the stream when it rained, fertilizing algae which absorbed oxygen from the water. Two hours later, your body metabolizes the coffee. Most of the water and nutrients are passed into the Oklahoma City sewer system where it is mixed with other organic and inorganic waste. They then travel under the streets of the city to Oklahoma City's sewage treatment plant on the North Canadian River in Jones where the solids are filtered, concentrated, digested and sterilized with screens, settling tanks, bacteria and chlorine. An engineer deems the sewage sludge clean enough for agriculture and a trucker hauls it to pulpwood tree farms for use as fertilizer and soil conditioner. A pipe carries the treated liquids a mile into the North Canadian River. Coffee is the world's second largest legal export commodity (after oil) and is the second largest source of foreign exchange for developing nations. The United States drinks about one-fifth of the world's coffee. If you drink two cups a day, you'll down 34 gallons of java this year, made from 18 pounds of beans. Colombian farms have 12 coffee trees growing to support your personal addiction. Farmers will apply 11 pounds of fertilizers and a few ounces of pesticides to the trees this year. And, Columbia's rivers will swell with 43 pounds of coffee pulp stripped from your beans. Okay, you don't want to give up coffee--What can you do? Cut back on drinking coffee-it stains your teeth and makes you jumpy anyway. (And nobody likes coffee breath, either!) Buy shade coffee. Coffee grown under the shade of mixed trees requires few or no chemical inputs; the lead litter replenishes soil nutrients and the variety of tree species benefits birds and discourages pest outbreaks. Many brands of shade coffee-often labeled as organic or cooperatively produced-are available. For more details on the Use Less Stuff Campaign, contact campaign coordinator, Susie Shields, at susie.shields@deq.state.ok.us or 405.702.5166. Information is also available on the web: www.deq.state.ok.us. Download the ULS Week 2002 packet Or Read more from the ULS Week 2002 Packet:
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