An initiative run by Cherwell District Council has seen more than a million coffee pods – weighing 16.4 tonnes – recycled in eight months.
Since May, the local authority has worked with not-for-profit organisation Podback to collect plastic and aluminium pods, with more than 3,000 households now using the service.
The council’s portfolio holder for cleaner and greener communities, Andrew McHugh, said: ‘Reaching this million pods milestone only eight months into a new service is a real sign of residents’ commitment to environmental sustainability.
‘Their efforts with coffee pods make an important contribution to our work to improve the district’s recycling rates and, like all recycling, it saves energy and reduces reliance on the extraction of raw materials.’
Pods are taken to specialist reprocessing plants, where the plastic and aluminium are transformed into new products and the coffee grounds are processed by anaerobic digestion, which creates renewable energy and soil conditioner.
