Recycling, coffee capsules go into separate waste collection

Single-serving coffee capsules will officially enter the separate collection - and consequent sorting and recycling process - from 12 August next, with the entry into force of the new European Packaging Regulation (Ppwr): they will in fact be considered packaging, even if full. "From 2026 the regulatory framework will be uniform throughout the EU and, therefore, by 2030 even complex products such as capsules will have to be able to be effectively recycled," explains Simona Fontana, director general of Conai, the national packaging consortium. "We are already at work," she adds, "with the supply chain consortia and all players in the sector to accompany this transition, focusing on sustainable design, plant innovation and increasingly efficient collection methods.

"This is a significant step that will improve the management of an increasingly widespread packaging that represents a challenge for all players in the supply chain", comments Giovanni Cassuti, president of Corepla, the plastic packaging recycling consortium. "Precisely for this reason, we are studying dedicated processes capable of valorising this type of packaging," he confirms, "to help make the recycling and recovery system increasingly efficient and sustainable.

"For 15 years now we have been active in the recovery of aluminium coffee capsules, with dedicated collections at points of sale," says Stefano Stellini, general manager of Cial, the aluminium packaging recycling consortium. "A plant separates aluminium and coffee," he explains, "and sends them for recycling, on the one hand to smelters, on the other to composting. In addition to this, for at least 10 years we have been experimenting with the inclusion of capsules, without currently recovering the coffee if they are not emptied, in domestic separate waste collection in a territorial basin that includes the provinces of Lecco, Monza and Brianza. Together with all other packaging, they flow into a plant that selects the so-called multi-light material (plastic packaging, aluminium, coupled materials, steel ndr) and through the treatment of the under-sieve they are recovered with other small aluminium components such as caps, blisters, lids and casings. On the basis of this experience, the perspective is to expand the number of this type of treatment in the multi-material collection sorting plants: it is a development that will take time and investment".

"As a bioplastics chain, we make ourselves available to the system", emphasises Armido Marana, from the board of directors of Assobioplastiche: "We are able," he explains, "on the one hand to produce coffee capsules in bioplastics, and already a fifth on the shelves of the large-scale retail trade are, and on the other hand to take care of their disposal in the organic waste collection, already having the whole treatment line through the Biorepack consortium, thus also recovering the coffee inside them.

Marana adds: 'However, we have to deal with some rigidities of the Ppwr: it requires countries to now write a list of products that can be made of bioplastic instead of virgin plastic products banned by the regulation from 2030, such as packaging for unprocessed fresh fruit and vegetables weighing less than 1.5 kg and single-use restaurant packaging. We should expand this list as much as possible, as Italy can do this, having a recycling chain linked to bioplastics. But at the moment coffee capsules and stretch film for foodstuffs, widely used in our supermarkets, are not listed. Not least because if they are listed, they automatically become mandatory with this material. Another absurdity is that this list must be compiled now or never, effectively denying the technological evolution of the coming years. Not to mention the very tight deadline to send it to Brussels and get an answer before August. This is why the discussions with all the representatives of the supply chains and the Environment and Enterprise Ministries are tight. We are working to find a solution'.