UK | Costa Coffee stores across the UK will provide free coffee pod drop-off points and Podback recycling bags for a five-month trial.
Costa Coffee has announced a new trial collaboration with Podback, a UK-wide coffee pod recycling service, to offer coffee pod recycling in 142 Costa Coffee stores across the UK.
During the trial, customers can pick up free Podback recycling bags in-store and return them once full for Podback to collect and recycle.
Customers will be able to pick up free Podback bags from baristas in all Costa Coffee stores located within Tesco stores across the UK, then take back their full bags for recycling.
Podback-branded recycling points have also been installed in the participating Tesco stores to make it even easier to spot opportunities to recycle pods. The scheme accepts plastic and aluminium pods from any Podback member brands, including Costa Coffee pods for Nespresso, Tassimo and NESCAFE Dolce Gusto machines.
“This trial gives Podback customers the opportunity to drop off their used pods at local Costa Coffee stores, a response to customer feedback telling us people want a choice of ways to recycle that fit with their daily lives,” said Rick Hindley, Executive Director of Podback.
“We are excited to be working with Costa Coffee and Tesco to make this a reality in more than 140 locations across the country. We are sure Podback customers will welcome the new service and hope it is the first step to rolling out more drop-off locations throughout the UK.”
The rollout of the new recycling points began in August, building on Costa Coffee’s existing in-house pod recycling scheme. Together, Podback and Costa Coffee will aim to collect more pods for recycling through specialist facilities.
This trial has marked the latest step in Costa Coffee’s efforts to provide recycling options for packaging items that can’t easily be recycled at home or kerbside. In 2018, the brand worked with Valpak, which helped fund cup recycling infrastructure across the country.
Costa Coffee has now become the first UK coffee chain to collaborate with Podback to introduce customer-facing pod recycling points.
“We are always looking for new ways to make recycling our packaging easier for our customers. Through this trial with Podback, in-store drop-off points will offer coffee pod users the chance to conveniently recycle their pods with us – whether they are Costa branded or not,” said Liz Higgins, Head of Sustainability at Costa Coffee.
“The new front-of-house recycling units will be supported by increased messaging in store, which we hope will act as a reminder to customers when visiting our participating stores. The trial will allow us to gather valuable customer feedback and insights, which we will use to enhance our future recycling solutions for pods, cups, and other packaging materials.”
The locations of all drop-off points will also be added to the Recycle Now Recycling Locator (managed by WRAP)—the UK's only postcode-based search tool for finding out what people can recycle at home or at nearby locations.
