to find Nespresso's new recycling process infuriating?

[Sausagenbacon]

It used to be that you'd bag the spent capsules up, and they would collect, or you could return them to the store.
My local store has now closed, and the collection system is really difficult to master - I haven't managed it yet.
So, they can paint themselves as environmentally-friendly, but do bugger all.

Plus, they make it difficult/impossible to complain, apart from talking to a robot.

I know this is a 1st world problem, but I felt the need to vent.

It’s very straightforward/ you initiate a collection on the Nespresso site and your postman will collect (you don’t even need to print a label as he brings it. Simple!

Sainsburys used to sell the eco press. I got one for £2.50 on clearance a few montgsback, so they may have discontinued them. Even without, they are easy enough to empty with a spoon or knife, grounds on the garden. Rinse the aluminium and in the recycling. I buy L'Or, they often have an offer for a free machine if you buy a load of capsules, and once you are on the system you get regular emails with discounts. Usually 20 or 25% every once in a while 30%.

We swapped for a bean to cup for exactly this reason. We were using about 5 pods a day and it felt so wasteful.

Which might suit some people, but not everyone can be in for the window collection time the post office give you.

How about these. Rainforest Alliance coffee and you can recycle the pods in your home compost. No landfill guilt!

foodylicious.co.uk

It's Eden Project Coffee.

Lots of people don't have "home compost" though. We don't, we have food waste and things like peelings collected weekly but that is food waste only, we're not supposed to put in things like mussel shells. The garden waste is picked up fortnightly, but again we can't put in things that weren't originally growing. We don't have a compost bin in the garden.

So although there are lots of things marketed as compostable, we can't compost them. We're not in some wee place either, this is a major city.

I'm on team OP
All of you who think "it's so easy... you don't have to print..." bla bla bla

what used to be ONE click now results in me needing to click 12 times and enter my details twice -

I just leave the recycling bag on the doorstep for the postie! Don’t need to be at home.

Good grief that’s an over engineered piece of kit…!

i just let them dry out, run a knife round the foil and empty them into the food waste 🤷‍♀️

They stopped picking up from me (I had to chase all the time) so I switched to grind which are compostable. I don’t use food waste collection except for this . Grind say they can go in food waste.
I used another brand and put them in my compost and now I’m forever picking them out so I’m not doing that again!

Thank you all - I have also lost my local Nespresso drop off point in John Lewis so I've ordered a dualit gadget. My husband is delighted he is desperate to get his hands on the grounds for his compost!

I was just going to suggest this. We have one. It's great. Coffee grits used on the garden.

My ecopress has just arrived. Thank you for the suggestion, it's just the job.

My postie positively encourages me to use him for sending the pods back as a rural postie every tiny thing keeps his round economically viable.

So, using the ecopress, I see there are rubber seals on the base of the pods. Do you think they need to be removed?

It is sooo annoying. They used to pick up the bag when they delivered the new ones. Easy easy. No store near me.

Does the ecopress take the larger vertuo capsules?

No

I would like to know the answer to this as well, if anyone can help?

Also don't appreciate how the delivery is now £4.95 for 1-2 days when it used to be free. Having now seen the new recycling faff via royal mail I'm done with vertuo, it's not like I can use a different brand of pod.

I have the larger Vertuo pods and just use a knife to separate the grinds from the foil and recycle both.

It would be good to have a device that did it for me though as I am starting to get arthritis.

Has anyone seen one for that size of pod?

The only problem with the ecopress (I did have one previously) is that the individual capsules are too small for the recycling sorting process. They literally fall through the gaps in the sorting machines and won't be recycled if you put them in individually. This is partly why drinks manufacturers are moving to tethered caps on bottles - it makes sure more plastic actually reaches where it needs to go as the little bits get lost.

You need to make sure you stack the capsules into a sausage shape and squash them so they stay stuck together. Or you can wrap them in tin foil to make a bigger shape. I found this, along with the emptying and rinsing, too much faff. I'm back to using the bags and sending them off.

That's useful to know, I'll do that. Have you any thoughts about the rubber seal?

I have to admit I am not the person who deals with this in my house, it's a teenage DS job. He says not all brands have the wee rubber seals, if he comes across any he just chucks them in the bin. But they don't stop the press working.

@Sausagenbacon I tend to use the official Nespresso ones and I don't think they have a rubber seal? What brand are you using?