MORE than one million UK households can now have their used coffee pods collected from the kerbside using Podback, a cross-industry recycling scheme.
With two new local authorities joining Podback so far this month, 1,078,600 households across 16 local authorities are now able to recycle their used aluminium and plastic coffee pods alongside other household waste and recycling.
The London Borough of Havering has become Podback’s latest partner, and the second London authority to offer residents a kerbside recycling service for coffee pods.
The move follows East Ayrshire becoming Podback’s first local authority partner in Scotland. Podback said residents’ response to the scheme has been positive, with more than 1,200 households already registered for kerbside collections in the first two weeks.
Podback was launched in April 2021 by Nestlé and Jacobs Douwe Egberts UK. Cheltenham Borough Council and South Derbyshire District Council were the first local authorities to offer kerbside collection of coffee pods through the scheme.
The organisation now works with more than 20 brands, including Nespresso, NESCAFE Dolce Gusto, Tassimo, L’OR and Aldi, to provide a single scheme for recycling used plastic and aluminium pods. New polling by Podback shows that 57% of consumers would consider swapping their usual coffee pod brand to one that offered a free recycling service.
Podback is due to launch three further local authority partnerships before the end of November, meaning over 1.3 million households will have access to the service by the end of the year.
Rick Hindley, executive director of Podback, said, “In a little over two years since Podback’s launch, we have made significant progress in our journey to ensure that every coffee pod enjoyed is recycled. This month marks another exciting milestone, with over one million households across the UK now able to use our kerbside service.”
Once collected, all coffee pods are reprocessed in the UK. Used aluminium pods are used in the manufacture of new products – such as beverage cans, and used plastic coffee pods are turned into other plastic items – such as supermarket crates and furniture. The used coffee grounds go through anaerobic digestion to produce a combination of biogas and soil improver.
