The Ethical Bean Coffee Company, based in Vancouver, has decided to back away from its plan to send used coffee bags to the Burnaby waste incinerator.

In the past week, since the company launched its "bags to energy" pilot program, the company’s CEO Lloyd Bernhardt was visited by Wilderness Committee Healthy Communities Campaigner Ben West as well as other advocates of sensible waste reduction options. West focused on the carbon footprint of incineration and presented Bernhardt with further evidence that waste incinerators produce more CO2 per kilowatt hour than a coal-fired power plant.

"Primum non nocere: First, do no harm. I was reminded of this maxim when I met with Ben. Upon closer scrutiny I realized that like many others, I do not have enough information to support the Burnaby Waste-to-Energy operations," said Bernhardt.

"We are really happy that Ethical Bean lived up to its name and when they were presented all the facts about the environmental dangers related to waste incineration they decided they would do the right thing," said West.

Ethical Bean plans to continue collecting used bags but will store them until they can find a solution for how to re-purpose the existing packaging. They will also continue to explore new packaging options.

"Instead of burning their used bags they will focus on finding a better solution for dealing with their packaging. We hope Metro Vancouver directors will follow this company's lead and shift their focus to a more aggressive recycling and composting plan not incineration," said West.

“I for one will bring my coffee mug down to Ethical Bean on the way to work this week and thank them for being part of the solution instead being part of the problem," said West.

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For more information please contact:

Ben West, Wilderness Committee, Healthy Communities Campaigner 604-710-5340