Costa Coffee Begins Podback Capsule Recycling Trial at UK Stores

Customers will now be able to pick up free Podback bags at 133 Costa Coffee stores located within Tesco supermarkets and nine coffee shops in Swindon.

The UK’s largest café chain is the latest major coffee brand to join Podback in a trial that will enable customers to return used coffee capsules for recycling at 142 of its stores

Costa Coffee has stepped up efforts to reduce its environmental impact after commencing a trial partnership with UK-wide coffee capsule recycling scheme, Podback.

Customers will now be able to pick up free Podback bags at 133 Costa Coffee stores located within Tesco supermarkets and nine coffee shops in Swindon. Podback recycling points have also been installed at each of the 142 participating outlets, enabling customers to drop off both aluminium and plastic coffee capsules from any Podback member brand.

“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,” said Liz Higgins, Head of Sustainability at Costa Coffee.

An estimated 350,000 coffee capsules end up in UK landfill sites every year.

Created by Nestlé and Jacobs Douwe Egberts UK in 2021, Podback is the UK’s first nationwide, not-for-profit service enabling customers to recycle both aluminium and plastic coffee capsules. Podback promotes that over 80% of coffee capsules sold in the UK can be recycled using the scheme, which also counts prominent coffee operators, Starbucks, and Pret A Manger as partner brands, alongside supermarkets Morrisons and Aldi.

The trial marks the latest move by Costa Coffee to reduce single-use waste and increase recycling. In 2018, Costa Coffee partnered with Valpak to the National Cup Recycling Scheme, which pays waste collectors to collect disposable coffee cups for recycling. The scheme was later joined by Caffè Nero, Greggs, McDonald’s and Pret A Manger and has so far recycled over 190 million coffee cups.

Costa Coffee operates more than 2,700 coffee shops in the UK and Ireland, and a further 1,300 coffee shops globally alongside a network of 14,200 self-serve machines. The Coca-Cola-owned company also sells a range of coffee capsules, Nespresso compatible pods and packaged coffee.