Published: 11 August 2016
Eyewitness 10 news
https://tenplay.com.au/news/national/august/the-ugly-truth-about-your-coffee-pods
They’re the little pod of wonder that makes mornings easier. Before Nespresso coffee pods hit the market, your morning coffee options were ‘instant’ (barely drinkable in today’s café cultured society) or spending twenty minutes putting together, taking apart, and cleaning a home espresso machine that has more moving parts than a farm tractor.
And if you ever had a doubt if Nespresso pods are popular, you have to look no further than any Nespresso store on a weekend, where customers are lined up out the door clawing to get their hands on a single sleeve like it was a square of Soylent Green!
But while we all love to drink them, this ‘little convenience’ is giving the environment a ‘giant headache’. Millions of pods are now ending up in landfill each year and there is growing concern about the environmental impacts of these coffee favourites.
It’s estimated Australians are using at least 3 million coffee pods per day, with most of the tiny aluminium pods ending up in landfill. Nespresso has repeatedly urged their customers to recycle their pods by either a) returning them to their stores, or b) dropping them off at one of the more than 250 collection points they have established in florists around the country… However, ask any Nespresso drinker…. When was the last time they this?
“3 million coffee pods a day equates to around an Olympic sized swimming pool every fortnight ending up in land fill,” Michael Scott, managing director of rival ‘The EcoCaffe Company’ said.
“That’s a hell of a lot of non-degradable waste.”
According to Scott, he states that plastic capsules can take more than 500 years to breakdown while aluminium capsules can take between 150 and 200 years.
His business, ‘The EcoCaffe Company’ is Australia's distributor of biodegradable espresso capsules, manufactured by Switzerland's Ethical Coffee Company. These capsules have been developed by former head of Nespresso Jean-Paul Gaillard, and are designed to be compatible with Nespresso machines.
They claim their pods, unlike plastic and aluminium pods, are made of vegetable matter and are fully biodegrade within 180 days.
Mr Scott started the company in late 2014 after realising coffee pods were becoming a major waste contributor in Australia.
“There is an estimated 20 billion pods per year being put into landfill around the world…so globally there is a huge problem,” Mr Scott said.
Despite Nespresso capsules dominating 42 per cent of the market, their machines dominate about three-quarters of the market with an estimated 1.1 million Nespresso machines in Australia.
“The machine installation is really high…so we focus on that part of the market,” Mr Scott explained.
“Given it took ten years to develop the EcoCaffe capsule it’s really important that we actually try and make a difference with it,”
Mr Scott says one of the biggest problems is that people are not aware about the consequences of their coffee capsules and they just don’t see the problem.
“The thing about coffee pods is they are not like plastic bottles or plastic bags or plastic coffee cup lids because you see those everywhere, but, coffee pods just go in the rubbish and as soon as they go into the rubbish they are never seen again,” Mr Scott said.
Asked if they plan to develop a biodegradable coffee pod, Nespresso says they’re sticking with aluminium for the time being, as it guarantees the best product possible, while stressing once again for consumers to do their bit recycling.
“Nespresso uses aluminium for its capsules because it is infinitely recyclable and we have found that it is the best material available to protect our Nespresso Grands Crus. Our sealed aluminium capsules provide the best protection against factors such as oxygen, light and humidity that can compromise freshness, taste and quality. Using aluminium also enables us to not use overwrapping pouches to protect freshness and aromas.”
Comments