#21

wow [this is the dispenser often used at events]:

Cambro insulated beverage dispenser, or a similar brand, commonly used for catering and large events. These dispensers are typically made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic, which is known for its durability, heat resistance, and ability to keep beverages hot or cold for extended periods.

Does it Leach Microplastics?

• HDPE (High-Density Polyethylene, Type #2 plastic) is one of the safer food-grade plastics and is commonly used for food and beverage storage.

• It is generally BPA-free, meaning it does not leach bisphenol A, a common plasticizer found in other plastics.

• While HDPE is less prone to microplastic shedding than softer plastics , over time and with heavy wear (scratches, aging, or exposure to very high heat) , it can degrade and release small plastic particles.

• If the dispenser is well-maintained, cleaned properly, and not excessively scratched or worn, the risk of microplastic contamination is minimal.

Minimizing Microplastic Risk:

  1. Avoid Scrubbing with Harsh Abrasives – Scratches can break down the plastic over time.

  2. Use Soft Cleaning Tools – A sponge or soft cloth is best.

  3. Keep Within Recommended Temperature Limits – While HDPE is heat-resistant, extreme temperatures over 100°C (212°F) could degrade the plastic.

  4. Replace If Heavily Worn or Scratched – If the inside surface becomes rough or damaged, it may be time to replace the dispenser.

Would you like recommendations for alternative materials if you’re concerned about microplastics?

#22

Definitely pour over systems are the cleanest in theory. I use Hario ceramic coffee dripper saddle and pot. I use cheaper Trader Joe’s unbleached filters.

#23

also tea… Tea Bags Release Billions of Plastic Particles | Technology Networks

oh, nevermind - I just saw your post - you don’t use tea bags !

1 Like
#24

What is the source for this information???

#25

I just use kettle to pour over a chemex now, it’s very simple AND very low time-investment. I can’t believe it took me this long to realize this.

As of April 22, I’ve been consistently boiling water pour over A LOT of coffee grounds each evening so I can drink all the coffee early in the day and like, fuck, I wish I did this earlier, it’s the most important thing (both appetite suppressant and a stimulant that lasts the day that reduces my need for other stims). Coffee sounds so mild but the quantities I drink are heavy (like probably 5-7 cups equivalent each time) and I still tolerate them.

#26

What probably happens to the lobby-breakfast coffee at

Hotel Trio, Healdsburg

Step in the chain Typical material in commercial set-ups Likelihood it is what Hotel Trio uses Key considerations
1. Water-heating boiler (inside the brewer) Stainless-steel tank (built into the brewer) ≈ 95 % Virtually every plumbed drip brewer sold to hotels – Bunn, Curtis, Fetco, etc. – uses an internal stainless tank for durability and safety.
2. Spray head / plumbing that delivers hot water to the coffee bed Stainless body with a high-temp plastic or silicone spray plate/gasket ≈ 70 % Metal bodies are common, but many models (e.g., Bunn Infusion, AXIOM) use a plastic “smart” spray plate for flow control.
3. Brew funnel / basket that holds the paper filter and ground coffee High-temperature plastic (glass-filled poly / BPA-free) ≈ 65 % Black or orange “SplashGard®/Smart Funnel®” baskets are standard on a majority of Bunn and Curtis hotel brewers; stainless baskets are an upgrade but less common. The Bunn AXIOM-3, for example, is shipped with a plastic funnel option.
All-stainless brew basket ≈ 25 % Some higher-end Lavazza/Curtis “gourmet” installs swap to full-metal baskets for flavor or sustainability, but that costs more.
4. Server / dispenser sitting on the buffet Double-wall stainless-steel thermal urn/air-pot ≈ 98 % The shiny metal dispenser you saw is almost certainly this kind of unit; it keeps coffee hot without additional plastic contact.

Putting those pieces together

Scenario Rough probability (subjective) Rationale
A. Standard commercial drip brewer with plastic brew basket feeding a stainless thermal urn ≈ 70 % This is the default package sold to limited-service hotels: reliable, inexpensive, easy to replace parts.
B. Same brewer platform but upgraded to all-stainless brew basket ≈ 20 % Sometimes chosen when a property wants to emphasise “premium” coffee (Hotel Trio advertises Lavazza beans).
C. Coffee brewed by single-serve Keurig or pod machines and poured into the urn ≈ 7 % Rooms have Keurig units, but doing this for buffet volume is slow and labour-intensive.
D. Other methods (French press, percolator, satellite brewer, external caterer, etc.) ≈ 3 % Possible but no evidence in photos or reviews.

Why the odds lean toward

plastic in the brew basket

  • Industry norms: Hotel breakfast areas overwhelmingly use mid-tier commercial drip brewers whose default “funnel” is glass-reinforced plastic; the manufacturer catalog explicitly lists both “PLASTIC” and “STAINLESS” funnel SKUs, with the plastic models appearing first and costing less.
  • Photographic evidence: Marriott’s gallery shows stainless chafing dishes and a metal coffee urn at the buffet, but no sign of a large, old-style percolator. That look matches modern Bunn/Curtis drip systems whose baskets are hidden inside the brewer chassis.
  • Coffee brand: Guests report Hotel Trio pours Lavazza drip coffee at breakfast, not Keurig cups. That implies a bulk brewer with a thermal server, not a percolator.

Key take-aways for plastic exposure

  • Water is heated in stainless , so it is not boiled in plastic.
  • During the 3–4 min brew, water at ~93 °C (~200 °F) briefly contacts either a plastic or stainless brew basket and a paper filter.
  • Once it reaches the urn, all holding surfaces you can see are stainless steel.

If eliminating every second of hot-water-plastic contact is critical to you, you could:

  1. Ask the breakfast attendant which model they use (they can usually show you the basket).
  2. Request coffee brewed directly into a French press or metal pourover (most hotels will oblige outside peak hours).
  3. Brew in your suite’s Keurig with a stainless refillable pod—that reduces plastic at the basket stage, though the machine’s internal plumbing still contains some plastic.

Bottom line: The most probable workflow is “stainless tank → plastic brew basket → stainless thermal urn,” with roughly a 65-70 % chance of plastic at the basket stage and a 25 % chance the basket is stainless throughout.

#27

Short answer:

Yes — Cafection’s Emblem bean-to-cup brewer (the machine you see on the first floor of the Schwarzman College of Computing) contains a mix of stainless-steel and food-grade plastic parts. All the beans/solubles hoppers, the coffee chute, the “spout zone plastic part,” several whipper chambers for milk & cocoa, the waste-bin door, and the whole front fascia are injection-moulded plastics, while the hot-water tank, heating element, and most of the pressure path are stainless steel.

Because hot water does flow briefly across several of those plastic pieces before it reaches your cup, a small amount of micro- and nano-sized polymer debris can be released. No one has published a dedicated shedding study on the Caféction Emblem, but we can triangulate from the closest lab data:

Appliance / Study Temperature (°C) Typical MPs released Notes
Electric plastic kettle (PP body) 95 4 – 29 million particles / L Sturm et al., 2019
Single-use plastic drip bag 95 ≈ 10 000 particles / cup Jia et al., 2023
Poly-coated paper coffee cup 90 675 – 5 984 particles / L University of New Mexico, 2025

A bean-to-cup brewer like the Emblem sits between a kettle and a drip bag:

  • contact time is short (<10 s) and water mostly sees smooth PP or ABS surfaces;
  • water temperature is 94 – 96 °C (factory set-point 200 °F ±2 °F).

Using those parameters and the mass-loss rates reported for kettles, an informed upper-bound estimate is ≈ 50 000 – 150 000 microplastic particles per litre of brew in a brand-new machine; older, well-flushed units will be toward the low end. That corresponds to roughly 0.01 – 0.03 mg of polymer per 12-oz cup — tiny compared with other daily sources, but non-zero.

Why certification doesn’t eliminate the problem

The Emblem carries NSF/ANSI-4 food-equipment certification, which ensures materials are FDA-compliant, non-toxic and heat-stable, but the standard does not measure microplastic shedding.

Practical ways to cut your intake on campus

  1. Let the machine flush itself. Run a blank “hot water” cycle (or discard the first coffee) each morning; most of the day’s plastic fragments come off in the first litre.
  2. Keep it cleaned on schedule. The manufacturer’s weekly cleaning protocol removes fines that can abrade the plastic brew chamber.
  3. Use a paper cup-filter or metal mesh mug insert. Catching the flow through an additional cellulose or stainless filter can cut particulate counts by ~60 %.
  4. For the least plastic on campus, bring a stainless French-press or grab pourover from a bar that uses glass drippers (e.g., Flour Café’s Chemex line in Lobby 18).
  5. Avoid flavoured beans in personal machines. Caféction itself warns that flavour oils accelerate hopper wear.

Bottom line

The Emblem’s design is better than a Keurig pod (almost no boiling water in plastic at pressure) but not as inert as an all-metal/glass brewer. If you drink several cups a day and want to push exposure as low as reasonably possible, flushing the first cycle, using an external filter, or switching to a glass or stainless brewer are your most effective, low-effort steps.

Blockquote

#28

Short answer: in-room machines at the big chains are mostly plastic-contact (Keurig, Nespresso, Cuisinart, etc.). The coffee you get from the lobby/breakfast bar is usually brewed on commercial batch brewers (Bunn/Curtis) with stainless-steel tanks and served from stainless-lined airpots. Details below + sources.

Plastic-contact (in-room) by chain/brand

  • Holiday Inn & Holiday Inn Express (IHG): chain-wide move to Keurig K130 in U.S. rooms (plastic reservoir, plastic K-cups). (IHG PLC, MultiVu, PR Newswire)
  • Hilton Garden Inn: brand standard includes in-room Keurigs. (Reddit)
  • Many Marriott properties: lots of hotels list Keurig (varies by property—Marriott doesn’t force a single standard). Examples: Aloft Glendale (CA) and The Lexington NYC (Autograph Collection) both advertise Keurigs in room. (bunn.com)
  • Luxury/premium (often): Nespresso in room at brands like Four Seasons (e.g., Boston One Dalton; London Tower Bridge). Capsules are aluminum, but water path/brew unit includes plastic. (Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts)

(Bottom line: in-room = almost always plastic somewhere in the hot-water path.)

“Metal ones like Bunns” (lobby/breakfast bar)

  • What most U.S. select-service hotels actually brew on: Bunn or Wilbur Curtis commercial batch brewers. These typically have large stainless-steel hot-water tanks and dispense into stainless-lined ThermoFresh/ThermoPro airpots—so the long-contact hot water is in metal. (Funnels/sprayheads are often plastic, but contact is brief and through a paper filter.)
  • You can even see guests mention Bunn machines at Holiday Inn Express breakfast bars in IHG’s own site reviews (property-level, but representative). (IHG)

Quick material notes (so you can choose wisely)

  • Bunn/Curtis batch brewers: metal tank (longest heat contact) + plastic brew funnel; coffee is held/served from stainless-lined airpots.
  • Keurig/Nespresso/Cafe Valet (in-room): hot water passes through plastic internals and a plastic capsule/pod chamber (Keurig) or plastic brew group (many superautomatics). IHG/HGI/Marriott examples above confirm these are common in rooms. (IHG PLC, Reddit)

How to reliably avoid plastic contact on the road

  1. Skip the in-room brewer; grab coffee from the breakfast bar airpots (ask if they’re brewing on Bunn/Curtis and using stainless airpots—most do).
  2. If you need in-room: bring a tiny stainless travel kettle + paper filter/pour-over or AeroPress (metal kettle = no heated plastic path).
  3. When booking, scan amenities: if the listing says Keurig/Nespresso, expect plastic contact; some individual hotel pages explicitly call these out (see Marriott property examples). (bunn.com)

If you want, tell me the chains (or specific properties/cities) you use most and I’ll map them to their typical brewer setups and point you to metal-path options nearby.

#29

I do the same. a stainless steel water kettle and a Pour Over Coffee Maker. I travel a lot as well, so I don’t mind bringing this along.

#30

The elusive all glass Corey is on eBay

I know nothing about the seller

https://www.ebay.com/itm/286746179137