Coffee pod recycling trial begins at Leeds household waste recycling centres

Used coffee pods can now be recycled at three household waste recycling centres in Leeds with a new trial underway.

Leeds City Council has partnered with Podback, a not-for-profit coffee pod recycling service, to trial coffee pod recycling at household waste recycling centres at Kirkstall, Wetherby and Yeadon.

The centres now include Podback containers at each site, one to collect aluminium pods and one for plastic pods. Coffee, tea or hot chocolate pods from participating brands can be recycled in the containers. To see the list of brands visit the Podback website at https://www.podback.org/about.

Used pods should be dropped into the containers loose and in their entirety, ready to be collected and recycled at dedicated Podback facilities in the UK. Any remaining coffee grounds or residue left in the pods will be treated by anaerobic digestion locally in Yorkshire to create renewable energy (biogas) and soil improver.

Leeds City Council executive member for climate, energy, environment and green space Councillor Mohammed Rafique said: 

“We are really excited to start the new year by working with Podback to recycle coffee pods at our household waste recycling centres. The timing is ideal, as people may have received a coffee-maker as a gift for Christmas so now they can recycle the pods easily and help the environment at the same time. We are very pleased to be offering this service to people in Leeds and working with Podback on this trial.”

Podback Executive Director Rick Hindley said:

“It’s great to be able to expand the Podback service by trialling it at three of Leeds City Council’s recycling centres. We want to make coffee pod recycling as easy as possible, and this new service enables residents to drop off pods when convenient, alongside other recyclables, and helping to reduce waste and increase recycling.” 

For more information on Podback visit https://www.podback.org/ or to see their video on how their recycling works visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-QQcAS1gPE.

Compostable pods cannot be recycled in the Podback containers or brown garden waste bins - they should be placed in a home composting bin.

Other pod drop-off points aside from the household waste recycling centres can be seen by entering postcodes and pod details into Podback’s recycling tracker at https://www.podback.org/recycle-checker.

ENDS