RECYCLE YOUR SINGLE-USE COFFEE PODS

Single-use coffee pods are recyclable and can be recycled with your containers in your blue box or container recycling bin, once the top and coffee grounds have been removed. Recycle BC and Keurig Green Mountain (Keurig) worked together to help explore the potential to recover even more small format plastics.

The Collaboration

Last year, Keurig committed to increasing recyclability of their K-Cup® pods.  The coffee company set a goal of converting to 100% recyclable materials by 2020. Recycle BC supported them to achieve that, along with our post-collection partners Emterra Environmental and Merlin Plastics who have done the sorting and testing of the new K-Cup® pods.

The Results

An average of 92% of the new K-Cup® pods made it to the container lines at Emterra and Merlin, and they were easy for machines to sort into the correct stream. According to Monique Oxender of Keurig North America, the testing done here has yielded better results than anywhere else.

How to Recycle Your Single-use Coffee Pods

Be sure to recycle your own single-use coffee pods to be a part of the solution!
1. Before throwing in the recycling, remove the plastic foil or top
2. Remove any coffee grounds that are still in the pod with a rinse
3. Place the empty coffee pod container into your recycling bin

Learn more about our work with Keurig by reading the Globe and Mail article or our Case Study.