Keurig faces marketing battle as Hamburg bans K-cups

The fact that these little plastic cups aren’t easily recyclable even caused their inventor, John Sylvan, to tell The Atlantic last year that sometimes he regrets having invented them at all.

There’s more bad news for the likes of Keurig and other coffee-pod makers now that the city of Hamburg has banned them from state-run buildings.

“With a purchasing power of several hundred millions of euros per annum, the city can help ensure that environmentally harmful products are purchased less frequently,” Jens Kerstan, the city’s senator for the environment, told the BBC.