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:
Avoid Scrubbing with Harsh Abrasives – Scratches can break down the plastic over time.
Use Soft Cleaning Tools – A sponge or soft cloth is best.
Keep Within Recommended Temperature Limits – While HDPE is heat-resistant, extreme temperatures over 100°C (212°F) could degrade the plastic.
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?
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.
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.
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:
Ask the breakfast attendant which model they use (they can usually show you the basket).
Request coffee brewed directly into a French press or metal pourover (most hotels will oblige outside peak hours).
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.
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
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.
Keep it cleaned on schedule. The manufacturer’s weekly cleaning protocol removes fines that can abrade the plastic brew chamber.
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 %.
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).
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.
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
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).
If you need in-room: bring a tiny stainless travel kettle + paper filter/pour-over or AeroPress (metal kettle = no heated plastic path).
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.
Paths: center dual spouts for coffee, left port for the milk carafe, separate metal-looking wand for hot water/steam. Shiny bits on the face are mostly chrome-plated plastic covers; they’re just shells.
The water/coffee path, piece by piece
Reservoir: clear plastic tank. Only cold/room-temp water touches this.
Pump + flow meter: polymer housings; water still cool here.
Heater (thermoblock/boiler): metal block (typically aluminum alloy with stainless channeling). This is where water jumps to ~90–96°C for coffee or hotter for steam.
Tubing between components: short runs of food-grade silicone and/or PTFE. Yes, hot water touches these.
Brew group (the internal “chamber”): mostly engineering plastics (POM/acetal or glass-filled nylon) plus stainless mesh/screens. Hot water and coffee contact these for seconds under pressure.
Dispense spout internals: inner channels are plastic; the shiny front plate is just a cover. Coffee passes through plastic here, then into your cup.
Milk system (if used): the removable carafe is polypropylene plus silicone gaskets; steam/hot water mixes with milk inside a plastic frother head.
Where hot water touches plastic (yes, specifically)
Silicone/PTFE hoses after the heater.
Brew-group body and valve parts (POM/PA).
Internal coffee spout channels.
Milk carafe/frother assembly if you use milk drinks.
Why that isn’t the apocalypse
Materials: Silicone, PTFE, POM, and PA66 are chosen for high temp, low extractables. No BPA involved; phthalates aren’t used in these plastics.
Contact time: seconds, not hours. Migration scales with time, temp, fat, acidity. Coffee is hot and mildly acidic, but the exposure window is short.
Dominant metal section: heating happens in a metal thermoblock; most of the thermal stress occurs before the water hits plastics.
Practical risk read
If “kettle-boiled water in a polypropylene pitcher” is a 5/10 nuisance, this machine is about a 1–2/10. Not zero, not scary.
If you still want belt-and-suspenders
Flush first: run ~200–300 mL hot water before the first cup of the day to purge staled water and any soluble residues.
Use the metal wand for hot water/tea instead of routing through the coffee spouts.
Skip the milk carafe and steam in a stainless pitcher if plastics bug you.
Descale on schedule with the brand’s acid or citric agent; scale corrosion is a bigger real-world contaminant source than polymer leachates.
Ultra-paranoid option: switch to a lever or E61 prosumer machine with copper/brass/stainless internals and a metal dispersion path. Or a stainless moka pot. Welcome to the world’s most expensive placebo.
About “pods”
This model doesn’t use capsules. The “pod-like thing” you might have heard about is the removable brew group, which is a reusable plastic-and-metal mechanism, not a disposable pod.
Bottom line: hot water does contact some internal plastics, by design, but they’re high-temp food-grade parts with brief exposure. If you’re losing sleep over it, it’s not the coffee machine that needs fixing.
Fine. CSI: Coffee Machine, vending edition.
You’re showing a Rheavendors Group tabletop vending unit (label: T.TOP 05N / FTS 60 E4 R2 with Nestlé branding). These come in two common guts: a soluble-drink rig and an optional espresso brew module. In both, hot water touches plastic. Here’s the anatomy.
Liquid path and materials
Shared backbone
Cold side: tank or mains line → pump (polymer housing) → flowmeter (polymer) → solenoid valves (brass or polymer bodies, EPDM seals).
Heater/boiler: metal (aluminum/stainless/brass). Heating happens in metal.
Hot side plumbing: short runs of food-grade silicone or PTFE tubing after the heater. Yes, these see 80–96 °C water.
Sensors/seals: NTC probe, EPDM/silicone O-rings.
A) Soluble drink configuration (Nescafé/Chocolate/Cappuccino “vending” mode)
Powder canisters: plastic hoppers.
Mixing/whipper bowl:POM/PP/PA plastic chamber where hot water jets in to dissolve powder; a plastic rotor “whips” it.
Outlet/nozzle/chute: plastic.
Result: hot water spends most of its post-boiler life in plastic parts here.
B) Espresso module (if installed)
Brew group: typically POM/acetal or glass-filled nylon body with stainless screens; 0.1–1 MPa on the label maps to up to ~10 bar capability.
Coffee spout internals: plastic channels under the shiny facade.
Result: heated water hits plastics in the brew unit and spout, though the thermoblock/boiler is metal.
Hot-water only outlet
Often a dedicated path, but still: boiler → silicone/PTFE hose → valve → outlet (sometimes metal-sleeved, inner channel plastic/silicone). So yes, plastic contact.
Temperatures, contact time, and migration reality
Temps: ~90–96 °C for espresso; ~80–92 °C for soluble drinks; steam path hotter but brief.
Time: seconds of contact, not storage.
Materials: silicone, PTFE, POM (acetal), PA66, PP, PC. These are selected for high-temp food contact; no BPA/phthalates in this application. POM can off-gas trace formaldehyde at abuse temps; under ~100 °C and short contact it’s within EU migration limits.
In practice, the bigger contaminants from vending setups are scale, biofilm if cleaning is neglected, and the cup/lid you drink from. Paper cups with PE lining shed more microplastic than these short internal runs.
Risk read (honest, not hysterical)
Soluble path: ~3/10 exposure to plastics (lots of plastic surfaces, but brief).
Espresso path: ~2/10.
Hot-water spout: ~2/10 (silicone/PTFE plus outlet).
If you’re minimizing polymer contact without renouncing caffeine
Pull hot water from a metal kettle at the bar, not the vending machine.
On this machine, flush 200–300 mL before your drink to purge stagnant hot side.
Prefer espresso drinks over “vending cappuccino/chocolate” since those use plastic whipper bowls.
Use a glass or stainless cup; skip plastic lids.
If you control maintenance: descale/sanitize on schedule. Hygiene beats microplastics on the real-world risk leaderboard.
Bottom line: this Rheavendors/Nescafé unit heats in metal, then routes hot water through silicone/PTFE hoses and plastic chambers before dispensing. If “no hot water should ever touch plastic” is your rule, vending machines are a non-starter.
Short answer: yes. Your BUNN’s hot water touches a few plastics.
What I’m seeing:
The milky, flexible hoses are silicone. That absolutely carries near-boiling water. Silicone is a high-temp, food-grade elastomer and the industry default for this.
The black brew chamber/funnel and the small manifolds look like glass-filled nylon or similar engineering plastic. Hot water hits those on the way to the paper filter.
The tank/boiler itself is stainless steel, so the very hottest water lives in metal before it exits to those parts.
The big PCB and connectors on the right are just electronics; no water path there. The black bin labeled “FRONT” only sees waste.
If you’re worried about leaching: silicone and the usual NSF-rated nylons/acetal are designed for 90–100 °C beverage service. If you want virtually zero plastic contact, you’d need an all-metal path (kettle + metal dripper, moka, or a brewer with metal sprayhead and basket). Otherwise, flush a blank brew at start-up and sleep slightly better knowing this setup is typical for commercial machines. Coffee paranoia level: manageable.
Coffee’s health impact depends on how you brew it. Filtered coffee is linked to a lower cancer risk, while unfiltered methods—like French press or boiled coffee—let oily compounds called diterpenes sneak into your cup. These compounds, particularly cafestol and kahweol, can raise LDL cholesterol by 10–30 mg/dL in just a few weeks. Long-term exposure to high levels of these diterpenes has been associated with a modest uptick in the risk for certain cancers, including pancreatic and respiratory tract cancers, as well as a higher risk of dementia (generally observed with very high levels of boiled coffee consumption in particular). What’s going on here? Diterpenes are fat-soluble, so they slip through metal filters or stay suspended in boiled brews. Filtered coffee contains undetectable levels of cholesterol-raising diterpenes. Polyphenols, on the other hand (like chlorogenic acids) are water-soluble antioxidants that pass through paper filters and deliver cellular benefits. If you’re drinking multiple cups per day, consider switching to filtered coffee. It preserves the antioxidants while minimizing cholesterol-raising compounds.
Does anyone know if the metal Nespresso capsules count as “filtered” when it comes to the cholesterol -raising compounds in coffee?
Well shit, according to Claude AI, they do not. And the whole reason I switched from Keurig to Nespresso was because of the metal vs plastic capsules. Less nanoplastics but higher LDL
