Keurig maker moves faster than expected on recyclable K-Cup pods

Keurig Green Mountain Inc. is pushing up the recyclability timetable for the company's K-Cup pods made in Canada.

The Waterbury, Vt.-based company now expects 100 percent of the K-Cup pods produced in that market to be recyclable by the end of next year.

Keurig Green Mountain, meanwhile, is maintaining existing plans to have all K-Cup pods recyclable by the end of 2020.

News of the advanced timeframe for Canada comes from the company's latest sustainability report issued June 13. The report covers a variety of environmental issues, including greenhouse gas emissions, water usage and waste diversion.

"We know that reducing the resources that we and our customers use every day yields environmental sustainability for our business, and we are proud of our accelerated progress," Chief Sustainability Officer Monique Oxender said in a statement. "Keeping those resources in use, at their highest value is also critical and delivering on pod recyclability achieves that in a meaningful way for our products and our communities."

Keurig Green Mountain is migrating to polypropylene for its K-Cup pods, a move that is replace a multi-material approach that has challenged the company and opened it up to criticism, often scathing. Even the inventor of the K-Cup has previously said he regretted his invention due to the recycling difficulty.

But there's a difference between an item being recyclable and it being recycled, and Keurig Green Mountain is working on both aspects.

While the company has been transitioning the composition of the K-Cup over the past couple of years, there's also been a focus on the actual sortation and recycling of the PP cups once they reach material recycling facilities, also known as MRFs.

Small items, such as K-Cups, can pose a challenge to MRFs that are typically designed to handle larger recyclables such as bottles, cans and paper. But research is proving that K-Cups can make it through sortation systems, the company said.

"Regardless of the equipment a MRF uses, the testing we've done shows that our K-Cup pods may have a greater chance of being recovered and stronger economic value than previously thought. During the tests, an average of 90 percent of empty K-Cup pods [made from polypropylene plastic] completed the journey through the sorting process — being properly separated from paper, cardboard, and glass items — and ended up on the main belt designated for plastic containers," the new sustainability report states.

"This is important, because when the pods make it to this container line, there is a greater potential they will be recovered for recycling into new items. We will continue to run tests at recovery facilities through 2017, expanding our testing to include other plastic items in an effort to improve plastics recovery across North America," the report continues.

Steve Alexander is executive director of the Association of Plastic Recyclers, a trade group.

"I give Keurig a lot of credit for the way they are proceeding here. The company has invested incredible amounts of time and money to work with the industry to figure out how to separate their product so it can be recycled. Some people think this can be done tomorrow. That's absolutely not true," he said in the sustainability report.

He indicated that solving the problem of capturing small plastic products on the recycling line, instead of having them fall through sortation equipment and end up in landfills, is not Keurig's problem to solve alone.

Alexander said in the report other companies with small products, equipment makers, MRFs, and those who collect recyclables all have a role to play.

The report is available at http://www.keuriggreenmountain.com/~/media/Sustainability/PDF/ReportsDisclosures/KeurigSustainabilityReport_2016.ashx.