Costa Coffee has collaborated with coffee pod recycling service Podback for a new trial, to offer coffee pod recycling in 142 Costa Coffee stores across the UK.
During the trial, customers can pick up free Podback recycling bags in-store and return them once full for Podback to collect and recycle. Customers will be able to pick up free Podback bags from baristas in 133 Costa Coffee stores located within Tesco stores across the UK and nine Costa Coffee stores in the Swindon area, then take back their full bags for recycling.
Through the Podback scheme, used aluminium and plastic pods are recycled in the UK. Apparently, aluminium pods are recycled in Cheshire and plastic pods are recycled in Yorkshire. The coffee grounds are reportedly processed by anaerobic digestion facilities, producing renewable energy (biogas) and soil improver.
Podback-branded recycling points have been installed in participating Tesco stores, and the scheme accepts both plastic and aluminium pods from any Podback member brands, including Costa Coffee pods for Nespresso, Tassimo and NESCAFE Dolce Gusto machines.
The rollout of the new recycling points began in August, building on Costa’s existing in-house pod recycling scheme. Both Podback and Costa Coffee aim to collect more pods for recycling through specialist facilities, where the different materials they are made from can be separated to enable them to be recycled.
Costa adds that in 2018 it worked with Valpak to establish the UK’s National Cup Recycling Scheme, which helped fund cup recycling infrastructure across the country. The company says it will now become the first UK coffee chain to collaborate with Podback to introduce customer-facing pod recycling points.
Catherine David, director of Behaviour Change and Business Programmes at WRAP, commented: “The trial with Costa Coffee is a fantastic way to normalise and simplify recycling coffee pods. Due to their multiple component materials, these pods must be sent to a specialist recycling facility. Now, customers can easily drop them off in any participating Costa Coffee store. Making recycling simple is key to success, and capturing trickier items like pods at scale is an important step forward.”
The locations of all drop off points will also be added to the Recycle Now Recycling Locator, managed by WRAP and said to be the UK’s only postcode-based search tool for people to find out what they can recycle at home, or at nearby locations.
In May, Morrisons announced a nationwide rollout of coffee pod collection points in partnership with Podback, hoping to make coffee pod recycling more accessible for the UK. With the launch of the new in-store collection points, customers can drop off their filled bags in Morrisons stores as part of their regular shop.
Earlier in the year, Keurig Dr Pepper revealed it had designed a new packaging format for single-serve coffee – roasted coffee beans which are ground, pressed and wrapped in a protective plant-based coating. After brewing, the pods can apparently be disposed of like coffee grounds and are expected to be certified compostable – the company is currently working through the certification process.
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