SCRANTON, Pa. — Coffee pods have become a convenient way for many of us to start our day with a cup of joe or as a pick-me-up in the afternoon, but what do you do with it once you use it?
"Most people think that even if they put them in the recycling container or curbside recycling, that they do wind up being recycled, and most of the time they're not at the municipality level," said Steve Ward, the clean and green ambassador with Scranton Tomorrow.
Ward says those little pods add up to a lot of waste.
"Estimates range from 10 to 13 billion coffee pods are produced every year. And if they're not being recycled, they wind up being in the landfill."
For America Recycles Day, the folks with Scranton Tomorrow have decided to collect used coffee pods and recycle them.
Ward explained what parts can be recycled and what is done with the remaining coffee grounds.
"The company that we're partnering with will actually compost it, so it'll be turned into compost that municipalities can use. There is a foil lid that they'll recycle and then a paper filter which can be composted too, and the actual plastic pod. It's way too labor-intensive for them to do this. So if it goes to the recycling center, then it's just going to be thrown out in landfills. So that's what we're trying to avoid."
Many homes and offices have these single-serve coffee systems, and Ward is asking people to save up those used pods.
"Bring the pods to us, and then we'll box them up and send them to a company called Terracycle. What they do is they take things that are difficult or impossible to recycle and reuse them."
Ward hopes to collect about 2,000 pods at Scranton Tomorrow's office near the corner of Linden Street and Penn Avenue to send off to be recycled.
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