Your Keurig Coffee Pods Are Never Getting Recycled

There’s a Keurig instrumentality successful immoderate 40 cardinal households successful the U.S. Single-serve java brewing systems — which let consumers to marque conscionable 1 cupful of java astatine a clip by feeding a pod into a slot and pressing a fastener — have soared successful popularity since the aboriginal 2000s.

Inevitably, this leads to a batch of trash.

Every cupful of java brewed creates a conundrum: what to bash with the java pod that produced it. To start, tin it beryllium recycled? The answer, successful Keurig’s case, is not really. The company’s single-use java pods — besides known arsenic K-cups — are made of polypropylene plastic, a worldly that experts pass is not arsenic recyclable arsenic consumers person been led to think. Two of the country’s largest recycling companies person said they bash not judge K-cup pods, and 1 biology radical calculated that if you lined up each the K-cup pods successful the world’s landfills broadside by side, they would comfortably ellipse the globe 10 times.

A caller java pod institution claims to person developed a solution to Keurig’s integrative discarded problem. Cambio Roasters, which launched successful September, offers a Keurig-compatible java pod that’s made retired of aluminum — which, dissimilar plastic, is infinitely recyclable. Cambio is led by a squad of erstwhile Keurig employees, including laminitis and CEO Kevin Hartley, who was antecedently a main innovation serviceman astatine Keurig Green Mountain, arsenic the institution was formerly known. “This is, successful our view, the astir breathtaking innovation successful java since the K-cup,” said Hartley during a launch-day property telephone for Cambio.

Experts, however, aren’t definite that Cambio understands conscionable however large of a occupation K-cups airs to curbside recycling systems.

“Really, integrative is conscionable not a bully option,” said Jeremy Pare, a visiting prof of concern and situation astatine Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. But adjacent aluminum, with each its benefits, is “still going to person issues.”

Part of the trouble of creating a genuinely recyclable packaging enactment — for conscionable astir immoderate user bully — is the severely fragmented quality of the American recycling landscape. “There are implicit 10,000 recycling systems successful the U.S.,” said Pare, who is besides a subordinate of the Plastic Pollution Working Group astatine Duke’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability. “And yet, astatine the aforesaid time, lone a 4th of the colonisation has entree to recycling successful the U.S.” (Pare lives successful 1 specified assemblage with nary ceremonial recycling program, conscionable extracurricular of Augusta, Maine.) In the U.S., the question of whether thing is recyclable tin lone accurately beryllium answered connected a section level.

Another occupation is the integrative creation of astir K-cup pods. Sustainability concerns person followed the Keurig marque intimately arsenic it has scaled. (Once a tiny startup, Keurig was acquired by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters successful 2006; successful 2018, Keurig Green Mountain merged with Dr Pepper Snapple to go Keurig Dr Pepper.) Keurig started selling K-cups pods made of polypropylene successful 2016, with the extremity of making 100 percent of K-cup pods “recyclable” by 2020. But the institution has tally into occupation for touting recyclability. In 2018, a California nonmigratory sued Keurig for claiming that K-cup pods could beryllium recycled aft the foil lid was removed and the java grounds were rinsed oregon dumped retired — which resulted successful Keurig agreeing to wage $10 cardinal successful a class-action settlement. And successful September of this year, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Keurig for falsely claiming the pods “can beryllium efficaciously recycled.” (Keurig settled the assertion by agreeing to wage a $1.5 cardinal punishment fee.)

Hartley, who near Keurig successful 2017, knew consumers wanted a plastic-free K-cup enactment — and aft years of prototypes and testing, helium and his squad settled connected aluminum arsenic an easier-to-recycle alternative. Aluminum is besides impervious to oxygen, which causes java to suffer its spirit implicit time. “Whenever we brew a cupful of coffee, it tastes precisely arsenic the roastmaster intended,” said Hartley.

Cambio isn’t the archetypal single-serve java institution to opt to ditch integrative oregon put successful circularity. Nespresso, a fashionable single-serve java institution that’s owned by the Nestlé Group, has made its capsules retired of aluminum for implicit 30 years. In 2020, Nespresso announced that its pods would beryllium made of 80 percent recycled aluminum, and it claims its planetary recycling complaint is 32 percent.

But Nespresso pods lone enactment successful Nespresso machines. Because Cambio java pods are designed to enactment with Keurig models, Hartley hopes to springiness consumers what they privation “without having to bargain a caller brewer.”

Cambio besides allows users to peel backmost the lid and dump retired the grounds earlier recycling. Nespresso pod lids are hard to remove, and the institution instructs users to recycle their pods arsenic is, grounds and each — but they’re lone approved for curbside recycling successful New York City and Jersey City, wherever a designated recycling contractor cleans them retired earlier reprocessing them. (Nespresso consumers tin besides message utilized pods backmost to the shaper for recycling, oregon driblet them disconnected astatine Nespresso stores.)

Unfortunately, swapping integrative for aluminum doesn’t automatically lick K-cup pods’ recyclability crisis, experts say. What truly prevents java pods, careless of what they’re made of, from having a 2nd beingness is their size.

After collection, recyclables are sorted astatine a installation known arsenic a materials betterment facility, oregon MRF. MRFs aren’t equipped to cod tiny items — a communal regularisation of thumb is that they can’t grip thing smaller than a recognition card — and truthful tiny objects placed successful recycling bins often upwind up getting sent to landfills. “The K-cups are truthful tiny that they autumn through” the machinery successful galore recycling facilities, said Pare. “So different than separating” java pods from the discarded watercourse “individually, there’s nary bully mode to recycle them.”

Cambio’s attack to moving astir this is two-pronged. First, the institution says it wants consumers to stack utilized K-cup pods unneurotic — and past pinch them closed — to flooded galore recycling facilities’ size requirements. Three oregon much utilized K-cup pods should make a portion of aluminum ample capable to acceptable done the machinery astatine recycling facilities, says Hartley. (These instructions don’t presently look connected Cambio’s packaging oregon website.)

Cambio says it is besides processing a instrumentality that volition marque this stacking and pinching of utilized K-cups easier. “Think of this instrumentality arsenic an casual mode for consumers to bundle cups unneurotic and past flip into their recycling bin,” said Hartley. He added that the institution has filed for patents for second-generation Cambio pods that tin beryllium “snapped” unneurotic aft use.

Jan Dell, a chemic technologist and an biology nonprofit founder, said, “I don’t deliberation aluminum pods are a meaningful improvement,” citing their tiny size arsenic a obstruction to being accepted and sorted via curbside recycling systems. “Think of the pods similar confetti: intolerable to cod backmost up.”

Cambio disagreed with Dell’s characterization of the power to aluminum, pointing retired that currently, fundamentally nary single-use integrative pods are recycled, whereas aluminum tin beryllium endlessly recycled. “To Cambio and consumers, these 2 facts are meaningful.” Hartley besides shared that the enactment of ensuring Cambio’s compatibility with recycling programs crossed the state is “ongoing.” The institution is readying to tally tests with MRFs successful circumstantial markets “as soon arsenic feasible.”

In effect to a petition for comment, a spokesperson from Keurig Dr Pepper said, “We cognize our consumers privation simplicity and little waste.” They shared that the institution has “been lightweighting our pods to trim the magnitude of integrative used,” arsenic good arsenic “increasing options for recycling them,” including a soon-to-be-launched programme successful which customers volition beryllium capable to message their utilized pods to Keurig for recycling. The spokesperson besides said the institution is “continually exploring” much “sustainable packaging” options.

Dell leads the nonprofit The Last Beach Cleanup, which is focused connected warring integrative pollution. The eventual solution to Keurig’s integrative footprint, she said, is simply a merchandise that eliminates “the request to cod thing backmost from customers,” similar a fiber-based pod that tin beryllium composted on with the grounds.

Keurig is presently investigating a plant-based pod format that won’t person immoderate integrative oregon aluminum, and the institution expects it to beryllium certified compostable, according to the Keurig Dr Pepper spokesperson. Hartley said helium worked connected that merchandise for galore years, calling it “an astonishing innovation.”

But these java pucks, which are not yet disposable for sale, will necessitate an wholly caller machine to run. “It’s going to instrumentality a agelong clip earlier America is going to propulsion distant 40 oregon 50 cardinal brewers and bargain 40 oregon 50 cardinal caller brewers,” said Hartley. He added, referring to his clip with Keurig, “I won’t archer publically however overmuch wealth we spent to commencement from zero and person 50 cardinal American households loving their Keurigs. But it’s a large lift, and it takes decades.”

In an interrogation with the Atlantic successful 2015, the inventor of the K-cup said, “I consciousness atrocious sometimes that I ever did it.” As the marketplace for single-serve java brewers grows, truthful volition its interaction connected the environment, unless its products are someway wildly reimagined and redesigned. Keurigs and Nespresso machines are marketed arsenic some convenient and luxurious, a operation that is apt to support drafting successful caller marketplace segments.

But eco-conscious java brewers tin remainder casual successful the cognition that you don’t request a Keurig oregon Nespresso instrumentality to brew 1 cupful of java astatine a time; immoderate java shaper tin beryllium single-serve if you usage lone the h2o and java grounds you really need. No pods required — maybe conscionable a filter.

This nonfiction primitively appeared successful Grist astatine https://grist.org/food-and-agriculture/why-its-so-hard-to-create-a-truly-recyclable-keurig-coffee-pod/. Grist is simply a nonprofit, autarkic media enactment dedicated to telling stories of clime solutions and a conscionable future. Learn much astatine Grist.org.