The Industrial and Commercial Coffee Association (AICC) and six associated companies have come together to create RECAPS, which aims to collect and recycle coffee capsules and 15 municipalities have already joined.
Developed over five years, RECAPS – Society for the Collection and Recycling of Coffee Capsules aims to “bring recycling to the doorstep (municipality) of all coffee capsule consumers in Portugal” and aims to “extend it to over 20 ” local authorities by the end of 2025, reads the statement.
This project is the result of “extensive work” that brings together “for the first time” competing brands such as Bellissimo, Delta Q and Ginga, from Delta Cafés, Torrié, from José Maria Vieira, Chave D’Ouro, Nicola and Segafredo, from Massimo Zanetti , Buondi, Nescafé Dolce Gusto, Nespresso, Sical and Starbucks, from Nestlé Portugal, Bogani, from NewCoffee, and UCC, from UCC Coffee.
With the aim of “contributing to Portugal getting closer to national recycling targets”, RECAPS “currently has around 200 ‘capsulons’ distributed across 15 municipalities: Almada, Aveiro, Braga, Cascais, Cantanhede, Condeixa, Famalicão, Guimarães, Lisbon, Mafra, Moita, Montemor-o-Novo, Oeiras, Proença-a-Nova and Seixal. Speaking to Lusa, RECAPS spokesperson, Cláudia Pimentel, said that “Portugal is one of the countries in Europe with the highest consumption of capsule coffee per capita, with around 2,000 million coffee capsules being placed on the market annually”.
Remembering that the collection and recycling flow of coffee capsules “is not mandatory by law, but that the sector as a whole is environmentally concerned and wants to contribute to Portugal achieving better recycling targets and reducing waste in landfills, our The objective is to maximize the scope of RECAPS (…) expanding the project to as many municipalities as possible”, he said.
This system is based “on a model very similar to traditional ecopoints, where success depends on joint collaboration between consumers, who are now challenged to deposit used coffee capsules in collection points designated as ecocenters or ‘capsulons’ set up by local authorities. ; municipalities, which ensure the availability and placement of capsule collection points for subsequent sending for treatment; and recycling companies, which ensure the collection of capsules and their forwarding to specialized recycling facilities, where plastic materials, aluminium and coffee grounds are separated and recycled”, he explained.
When asked how the collection will be carried out, Cláudia Pimental said that this is done individually by each municipality through the various collection points. “Later, they are stored at a municipal waste company or in the municipality itself and are then collected by the RECAPS partner recycler who separates the waste (sludge, plastic and aluminium)”, he highlighted.
The location of capsule collection points is defined by the municipalities and “takes advantage of the location of existing recycling points (mobile or fixed), optimising already tested collection and transport circuits”. For example, in Guimarães “the municipality promoted with retailers that operate locally the creation of new collection points in addition to those previously mentioned”.
Currently, the system is implemented in 13 municipalities – Almada, Aveiro, Braga, Cascais, Cantanhede, Condeixa, Famalicão, Guimarães, Lisbon, Mafra, Moita, Oeiras and Seixal – and has around 200 collection points, including fixed recycling points and furniture and capsules. Regarding the recycling process, the person responsible said that “the separation of the materials from the collected capsules” will be carried out “by specialized recycling entities, such as Bio4plás and Saica”.
Especially because “these recycling companies are responsible for separating the three main components of the capsules: plastic, aluminium and coffee grounds”. According to Cláudia Pimentel, the “separation process begins with the removal of coffee grounds, which can be used for composting or as an agricultural additive”.
Then, “aluminium and plastic are separated and sent for recycling, where they are transformed into new products, while “plastic can be reused, for example, in the production of urban furniture, such as chairs and tables used on cafe terraces and crates of the trash.” Aluminium “can be recycled to create new items such as the metal structure of the French press coffee maker”, he concluded.