Dive Brief:
- For some coffee drinkers, K-Cups are as essential to their morning as cream and sugar for their coffee. But the diminutive plastic single-serve coffee cups are difficult to recycle because they include various materials. A Trenton, NJ-based recycling firm is hoping to ease the difficulties of recycling K-Cups.
- TerraCycle is tackling the problem of recycling the billions of K-Cup packages sold yearly.
- Albe Zakes, vice president of TerraCycle, said K-Cups are tough to recycle because they include a foil wrapper, coffee grounds and a plastic cup. The firm’s K-Cup recycling program began about a year and a half ago and thus far has recycled more than 2,400 pounds of the coffee dispenser cups. Through its Zero Waste Box program, TerraCycle provides boxes that range in cost from $78 to $210. The price covers the cardboard box for the recyclables, and a prepaid shipping cost to send the full box back to the recycling firm.
Dive Insight:
While recycling is generally a laudable effort, it needs to make sense and be relatively simple for consumers. While TerraCycle’s effort to keep more junk out of landfills is commendable, it remains to be seen if consumers are ready to spend extra money and time to cooperate with that effort.
