British supermarket chain Morrisons and pod recycling service Podback are expanding their coffee pod recycling initiative across the UK, aiming to make coffee pod recycling more convenient for consumers.  

The nationwide rollout of dedicated collection points across more than 350 Morrisons stores is scheduled to begin next month. 

Customers can obtain free Podback recycling bags at Morrisons' customer service desks.  

The addition of more in-store collection points will allow customers to return recycling bags filled with used coffee pods easily during their regular shopping trips.  

Morrisons Waste and Sustainability manager Zara Safdari said: “Picking up Podback bags while doing a supermarket shop and dropping them back, filled, on further shopping trips makes it easy for consumers to recycle their used coffee pods.

"We’re pleased to be extending this service to make it even easier for our customers who want barista-style coffee at home to recycle their used pods.” 

The Podback scheme ensures that used aluminium and plastic pods are recycled within the UK, with aluminium pods processed in Cheshire and plastic pods in East Yorkshire. 

Morrisons has been supporting Podback's recycling efforts since 2022, when it started offering free coffee pod recycling bags.  

Last July, Morrisons launched an initial trial for this in-store drop-off service for used coffee machine pods. This trail was rolled out across 29 Morrisons stores. 

Following this successful trial, the supermarket is now ready for a full-scale rollout of the scheme.  

Podback highlighted that by the end of this March, the trial stores had gathered more than 42,300kg of pods, averaging 37kg per store each week and equating to approximately 2.8 million pods. 

Podback executive director Rick Hindley said: “The in-store drop-off trial proved an immediate success with recyclers, and the volume of pods collected through the trial has continued to grow month-on-month.”