Aldi has teamed up with Podback to help its customers recycle their used coffee, tea and hot chocolate pods.
The first supermarket member of the recycling scheme, from early next year Aldi’s shoppers will be able to visit the Podback website to order recyling bags that can be filled with Aldi own-label pods and taken to one of 6,500 Collect+ frop off points.
For those living in a participating local authority area, Podback will also allow registration for kerbside collections.
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Pods recycled via Podback are reprocessed in the UK with aluminimum pods used in the manufacturing of beverage cans and car componants, while plastic coffee pods are turned into items such as furniture, industrial packaging and building products.
Through using the service, customers could help to recycle up to 268 tonnes of plastic and 20 tonnes of aluminium from the discount grocers own-label coffee pods each year.
Used coffee grounds also go through anaerobic digestion to produce a combination of biogas and soil improver.
“We’re pleased to be joining Podback on this journey – especially as the first supermarket member,” Aldi plastics and packaging director, Richard Gorman said.
“It’s important to us that we help customers do the right thing once our hot drink pods have been used, and we look forward to seeing how our partnership with Podback progresses.”
Podback executive director, Rick Hindley added: “This marks a key milestone for the programme and we are looking forward to working with Aldi to promote our service to their customers.
“We hope other retailers will follow Aldi’s lead and offer their own-brand pod customers the opportunity to recycle through Podback.”
