From morning brews to meaningful action—Asda shoppers are turning their daily coffee habits into a force for good. Since the beginning of 2025, customers have recycled over 3 million coffee pods through the retailer's innovative new scheme. Through the Podback scheme, both plastic and aluminium coffee pods are recycled within the UK.
Rolled out in January in partnership with Podback, the initiative provides a hassle-free way for coffee lovers to drop off their used pods at more than 600 Asda stores across the UK. The used coffee grounds undergo anaerobic digestion, converting them into renewable energy and nutrient-rich soil improvers. Meanwhile, the recovered aluminium and plastic are repurposed into new products, including drink cans, construction materials, and outdoor furniture.
In just 12 weeks, shoppers have returned more than 50,000 bags—equating to around 3.3 million coffee pods or 47 tonnes of waste—via the free service. Traditional recycling systems can't process coffee pods easily due to their small size and the presence of organic residue, making this dedicated scheme a vital alternative.
Beth Fowler, senior manager – of healthy and sustainable choices at Asda, said, "Our partnership with Podback is focused on making it as easy as possible for customers to recycle coffee pods as part of their regular shopping routine, so we're delighted to see such a strong uptake in such a short space of time. Following this initial success, we're now looking at more ways we can extend our partnership to encourage even more coffee lovers to use the service next time they're in ours store".
Launched in 2021 by Nestlé and Jacobs Douwe Egberts, the Podback service was created to make recycling coffee pods simple and accessible for consumers across the UK. Users can recycle their used aluminium and plastic pods by filling a Podback bag and returning it via the toYou parcel returns service at their nearest participating Asda store.
Image Source: Asda website
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