Toronto-based company Club Coffee has created the world’s first compostable coffee pod, the PurPod100. Certified 100% compostable by the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI), the pod degrades completely during industrial composting processes and can be used with the popular Keurig 2.0 home coffee brewing system.
Keurig’s own coffee pods, known as K-cups, are notorious for being environmentally harmful. K-Cups are neither recyclable nor biodegradable, and generate tons of plastic waste each year.
“Some pods claim to be partially biodegradable, while others tout some recyclability – but none of those claims are backed by independent third-party validation,” said Club Coffee CEO John Pigott.
Club Coffee is the only company that has earned the BPI certification for coffee pods, and was developed with the help of the University of Guelph’s Bioproducts Discovery and Development Centre.
The harmful nature of Keurig’s coffee pods has been known since 2010, with their creator John Sylvan going on record as saying he “feels bad” about inventing them. A 2014 viral video titled “Kill the K-Cup” has since brought wider attention to the problem.
Keurig has announced their own recyclable pod to be released in 2020.
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