Coffee Contamination

There’s a lot to worry about during everyday life, and I’m going to add another thing: Coffee—specifically caffeine—is contaminating the groundwater.

You can kind of see why. Worldwide, humans consume some 2.25 billion cups of coffee every day. Up to 99% of a coffee’s caffeine content is absorbed by our bodies within 45 minutes of drinking it, and thus only a very small amount of each cup makes it into our wastewater systems. However, if you multiply that by 2.25 billion, it adds up—and that’s not to mention waste from processing as well as other caffeine-containing beverages and pharmaceuticals.

Over the past decade, multiple studies have shown that caffeine, along with plenty of other contaminants, has seeped into the groundwater anywhere people are present. While such contamination isn’t necessarily a direct threat to human health, researchers are worried about the effect on wildlife and the environment. 

It just goes to show that coffee’s influence on the world goes beyond the agricultural, cultural, or economic and seeps into the very earth.