We’ve carefully weighed up the pros and cons of different coffee pod materials, and aluminium was the clear front-runner.

Our goal was to ensure that our products will actually be recycled, rather than just theoretically recyclable.

Aluminium pods have more establised recycling streams and programs, that more people can access.

Further, by providing easy means by which our customers can access these streams (free recycling satchels, anyone?), we feel that more of our product will actually make it into the recycling/circular economy than otherwise.

During development, Humble Brag also researched and tested home compostable coffee pods. While this material seemed, at face value, to be a great option, there are significant barriers to ensuring these pods are actually composted and their materials reused.

Home compostable plastics like those with AS5810 certification, or commercial AS4736 certification can still take significant amounts of time to break down in real-world scenarios. Because of this, very few organic waste composters won't accept even certified compostable plastics. In fact, we couldn't find any.

Our research also found that many consumers who have the space and inclination to compost at home are reluctant to add even certified home compostable products into their compost heaps.

These consumers cite uneasiness about other possible contaminants that may be present in the compostable plastics.

With this in mind, we concluded that while compostable pods seem like a great idea at first glance, most of our compostable pods would end up in landfill.

Aluminium wins, when paired with an easy to use pod recycling program.

Aluminium is easily and infinitely recyclable. Products made from recycled aluminium materials can carry only 8% of the carbon footprint of equivalent products made with virgin aluminium.