Your Keurig Espresso Pods Are By no means Getting Recycled

There’s a Keurig machine in some 40 million households in the U.S. Single-serve espresso brewing methods — which permit customers to make only one cup of espresso at a time by feeding a pod right into a slot and urgent a button — have soared in recognition for the reason that early 2000s.

Inevitably, this results in lots of trash.

Each cup of java brewed creates a conundrum: what to do with the espresso pod that produced it. To start out, can it’s recycled? The reply, in Keurig’s case, is just not actually. The corporate’s single-use espresso pods — also called Okay-cups — are product of polypropylene plastic, a cloth that experts warn is not as recyclable as customers have been led to assume. Two of the nation’s largest recycling corporations have mentioned they don’t settle for Okay-cup pods, and one environmental group calculated that if you happen to lined up all of the Okay-cup pods on this planet’s landfills facet by facet, they would comfortably circle the globe 10 times.

A brand new espresso pod firm claims to have developed an answer to Keurig’s plastic waste downside. Cambio Roasters, which launched in September, provides a Keurig-compatible espresso pod that’s made out of aluminum — which, in contrast to plastic, is infinitely recyclable. Cambio is led by a crew of former Keurig workers, together with founder and CEO Kevin Hartley, who was beforehand a chief innovation officer at Keurig Inexperienced Mountain, as the corporate was previously recognized. “That is, in our view, essentially the most thrilling innovation in espresso for the reason that Okay-cup,” mentioned Hartley throughout a launch-day press name for Cambio.

Specialists, nonetheless, aren’t certain that Cambio understands simply how large of an issue Okay-cups pose to curbside recycling methods.

“Actually, plastic is simply not a very good possibility,” mentioned Jeremy Pare, a visiting professor of enterprise and atmosphere at Duke College’s Nicholas College of the Atmosphere. However even aluminum, with all its advantages, is “nonetheless going to have points.”

A part of the issue of making a really recyclable packaging possibility — for nearly any client good — is the severely fragmented nature of the American recycling panorama. “There are over 10,000 recycling methods within the U.S.,” mentioned Pare, who can also be a member of the Plastic Air pollution Working Group at Duke’s Nicholas Institute for Vitality, Atmosphere, and Sustainability. “And but, on the identical time, solely 1 / 4 of the inhabitants has entry to recycling within the U.S.” (Pare lives in a single such group with no formal recycling program, simply exterior of Augusta, Maine.) Within the U.S., the query of whether or not one thing is recyclable can solely precisely be answered on a neighborhood degree.

One other downside is the plastic composition of most Okay-cup pods. Sustainability considerations have adopted the Keurig model intently because it has scaled. (As soon as a small startup, Keurig was acquired by Inexperienced Mountain Espresso Roasters in 2006; in 2018, Keurig Inexperienced Mountain merged with Dr Pepper Snapple to develop into Keurig Dr Pepper.) Keurig began promoting Okay-cups pods made of polypropylene in 2016, with the objective of making 100 percent of K-cup pods “recyclable” by 2020. However the firm has run into hassle for touting recyclability. In 2018, a California resident sued Keurig for claiming that Okay-cup pods might be recycled after the foil lid was eliminated and the espresso grounds had been rinsed or dumped out — which resulted in Keurig agreeing to pay $10 million in a class-action settlement. And in September of this 12 months, the Securities and Trade Fee charged Keurig for falsely claiming the pods “can be effectively recycled.” (Keurig settled the declare by agreeing to pay a $1.5 million penalty payment.)

Hartley, who left Keurig in 2017, knew customers wished a plastic-free Okay-cup possibility — and after years of prototypes and testing, he and his crew settled on aluminum as an easier-to-recycle various. Aluminum can also be impervious to oxygen, which causes espresso to lose its taste over time. “Each time we brew a cup of espresso, it tastes precisely because the roastmaster supposed,” mentioned Hartley.

Cambio isn’t the primary single-serve espresso firm to choose to ditch plastic or spend money on circularity. Nespresso, a preferred single-serve espresso firm that’s owned by the Nestlé Group, has made its capsules out of aluminum for over 30 years. In 2020, Nespresso introduced that its pods can be product of 80 percent recycled aluminum, and it claims its international recycling charge is 32 percent.

However Nespresso pods solely work in Nespresso machines. As a result of Cambio espresso pods are designed to work with Keurig fashions, Hartley hopes to provide customers what they need “with out having to purchase a brand new brewer.”

Cambio additionally permits customers to peel again the lid and dump out the grounds earlier than recycling. Nespresso pod lids are difficult to remove, and the corporate instructs customers to recycle their pods as is, grounds and all — however they’re solely authorised for curbside recycling in New York City and Jersey City, the place a chosen recycling contractor cleans them out earlier than reprocessing them. (Nespresso customers also can mail used pods again to the producer for recycling, or drop them off at Nespresso shops.)

Sadly, swapping plastic for aluminum doesn’t routinely remedy Okay-cup pods’ recyclability disaster, specialists say. What actually prevents espresso pods, no matter what they’re product of, from having a second life is their measurement.

After assortment, recyclables are sorted at a facility often known as a supplies restoration facility, or MRF. MRFs aren’t geared up to gather small gadgets — a standard rule of thumb is that they’ll’t deal with something smaller than a credit card — and so small objects positioned in recycling bins usually wind up getting despatched to landfills. “The Okay-cups are so small that they fall by way of” the equipment in lots of recycling amenities, mentioned Pare. “So apart from separating” espresso pods from the waste stream “individually, there’s no good option to recycle them.”

Cambio’s method to working round that is two-pronged. First, the corporate says it desires customers to stack used Okay-cup pods collectively — after which pinch them closed — to beat many recycling amenities’ measurement necessities. Three or extra used Okay-cup pods ought to create a bit of aluminum giant sufficient to suit by way of the equipment at recycling amenities, says Hartley. (These directions don’t at the moment seem on Cambio’s packaging or web site.)

Cambio says it is usually creating a tool that may make this stacking and pinching of used Okay-cups simpler. “Consider this system as a straightforward means for customers to bundle cups collectively after which toss into their recycling bin,” mentioned Hartley. He added that the corporate has filed for patents for second-generation Cambio pods that may be “snapped” collectively after use.

Jan Dell, a chemical engineer and an environmental nonprofit founder, mentioned, “I don’t assume aluminum pods are a significant enchancment,” citing their small measurement as a barrier to being accepted and sorted by way of curbside recycling methods. “Consider the pods like confetti: unimaginable to gather again up.”

Cambio disagreed with Dell’s characterization of the swap to aluminum, mentioning that at the moment, primarily no single-use plastic pods are recycled, whereas aluminum could be endlessly recycled. “To Cambio and customers, these two details are significant.” Hartley additionally shared that the work of making certain Cambio’s compatibility with recycling packages throughout the nation is “ongoing.” The corporate is planning to run exams with MRFs in particular markets “as quickly as possible.”

In response to a request for remark, a spokesperson from Keurig Dr Pepper mentioned, “We all know our customers need simplicity and fewer waste.” They shared that the corporate has “been lightweighting our pods to scale back the quantity of plastic used,” in addition to “growing choices for recycling them,” together with a soon-to-be-launched program by which prospects will be capable of mail their used pods to Keurig for recycling. The spokesperson additionally mentioned the corporate is “regularly exploring” extra “sustainable packaging” choices.

Dell leads the nonprofit The Final Seaside Cleanup, which is targeted on preventing plastic air pollution. The final word resolution to Keurig’s plastic footprint, she mentioned, is a product that eliminates “the necessity to acquire something again from prospects,” like a fiber-based pod that may be composted together with the grounds.

Keurig is at the moment testing a plant-based pod format that gained’t have any plastic or aluminum, and the corporate expects it to be licensed compostable, in response to the Keurig Dr Pepper spokesperson. Hartley mentioned he labored on that product for a few years, calling it “an incredible innovation.”

However these espresso pucks, which aren’t but accessible on the market, will require an entirely new machine to run. “It’s going to take a very long time earlier than America goes to throw away 40 or 50 million brewers and purchase 40 or 50 million new brewers,” mentioned Hartley. He added, referring to his time with Keurig, “I gained’t inform publicly how a lot cash we spent to start out from zero and have 50 million American households loving their Keurigs. Nevertheless it’s a giant raise, and it takes many years.”

In an interview with the Atlantic in 2015, the inventor of the K-cup mentioned, “I really feel dangerous typically that I ever did it.” As the marketplace for single-serve coffee brewers grows, so will its impression on the atmosphere, except its merchandise are one way or the other wildly reimagined and redesigned. Keurigs and Nespresso machines are marketed as each handy and splendid, a mixture that’s more likely to hold drawing in new market segments.

However eco-conscious espresso brewers can relaxation simple within the data that you simply don’t want a Keurig or Nespresso machine to brew one cup of espresso at a time; any espresso maker could be single-serve if you happen to use solely the water and low grounds you really want. No pods required — perhaps only a filter.

This text initially appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/food-and-agriculture/why-its-so-hard-to-create-a-truly-recyclable-keurig-coffee-pod/. Grist is a nonprofit, unbiased media group devoted to telling tales of local weather options and a simply future. Study extra at Grist.org.