The fourth-largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, Morrisons, will conduct a trial run of the in-store recycling points for coffee machines launched in association with Podback. The partnership with Podback will first be tested in 29 Morrisons locations. Customers will need to use suitably colour-tagged bags - one for aluminium pods and one for plastic pods - to separate them and then send them to various recycling centres across the UK.

The testing or the trial is the first carried out by a UK grocery company. Morrisons customers will have access to a new drop-off service at selected stores as part of the experiment, enabling them to acquire Podback recycling bags, fill them with spent pods, and recycle them in dedicated bins at the front of the shop.

Rick Hindley, executive director at Podback, said, "This is another exciting step forward towards providing consumers with easy and convenient ways to recycle their used coffee pods. We welcome and encourage other retailers to join Podback and make it even easier for consumers to recycle pods in the future."

According to the company, Podback recycles aluminium coffee pods into ingots, which are then utilised to make new items such as beverage cans. Meanwhile, used plastic coffee pods are recycled into various objects, such as construction materials and crates. The system will also take Morrisons' own-brand pods and 24 other pod brands. According to industry estimates, UK consumers purchased 800 million coffee pods last year, making it "even more important" for Morrisons customers to have a more straightforward way to recycle their pods.

"To make it even easier for our customers who want to brew fresh coffee at home to recycle their used coffee pods. Now they can grab a Podback bag, fill it at home and simply drop it off on their next store trip," said Natasha Cook, sustainable packaging and plastics manager at Morrisons.

It further said that used coffee grounds are recycled, passing through anaerobic digestion to create biogas and soil improver. Morrisons initially collaborated with Podback last year when it started providing free coffee pod recycling bags to all customers in all of its shops. The bags are then filled at home and sent to one of the UK's 6,500 Yodel drop-off stations, where Podback will reimburse the shipping.