Everything You Need to Know About Recycling Coffee Pods
While coffee pods have made coffee more accessible than it’s ever been. With that being said, it doesn’t come without its drawbacks. One of the most obvious drawbacks that come with coffee pods is the amount of waste that they produce. Think about it, most of those coffee pods end up in landfills and contribute to the growing amount of solid waste in the world. Luckily, there is a way around this as coffee pods can actually be recycled. It’s understandable if you know close to nothing about this as it’s not really something that’s widely discussed. To help you get a better grasp of things, we thought it would be useful to put together a brief article on this subject. If this is something that you want to learn more about, read on as we discuss everything you need to know about recycling coffee pods.
Are Coffee Pods Bad for the Environment?
Single-serving coffee pods, while convenient and relatively inexpensive, come at a large environmental cost. As we’ve already stated above, these pods continue to contribute to the growing amount of waste that’s sent over to our landfills. On top of this, the material that most pods are made up of can also be harmful to the environment when they aren’t disposed of properly. With that being said, there are coffee pods that make use of environmentally friendly materials. In fact, we here at Pod Life Coffee produce fully biodegradable coffee pods that are also compostable.
Can You Recycle Coffee Pods?
This is a rather tricky question to answer as it really depends on what type of coffee pods you’re using. Coffee pods are recyclable, but only in specific situations. Just as you can’t recycle a bottle of water, you can’t put a coffee pod in the recycling bin. While you can recycle coffee pods, the lids are made of foil, so they can contaminate the rest of the plastic. To be more clear: Coffee pods can be recycled, but they cannot go in the recycling bin.
Where Can Coffee Pods Be Recycled?
As of this writing, the only way to ensure that no coffee pods get into landfills is to use drop-off and post-back programs like those run by Terracycle. Even certified compostable coffee pods can’t go in most home composts or organics bins. To add to this, coffee grounds can’t be also aren’t suitable for recycling as recycling bins can’t take any organic material.
Some coffee pod producers also encourage their customers to recycle. So much so that brands such as Nespresso allow you to drop off the coffee pods in their stores so that these pods can be recycled. Alternatively, you can also use the prepaid Australia Post recycling satchel to send back the capsules to Nespresso. The satchel is available for $3 and can hold up to 130 capsules.
Recycling Coffee Pods Can Be Easy
As you can see, recycling coffee pods doesn’t have to be difficult. While it may require a little work on your end, minimizing your carbon footprint all while enjoying great cups of coffee will be well worth it in the end. Be sure to keep everything that we’ve discussed here in mind so you can recycle your coffee pods with little to no trouble.
If you're searching for the best compostable coffee pods in Australia, you've come to the perfect spot. Pod Life Coffee supplies biodegradable and compostable Nespresso alternative coffee pods that will suit your taste buds. Check out our coffee pods now!
