Tassimo coffee pods not recyclable in Quebec City

Consumersof Tassimo'ssingle-usecoffee pods no longer have the option to recycle them in many regions of Quebec, including theprovincial capital.

• Keurig and its competitors seek guilt-free ways to dispose of coffee pods
• K-Cup creator John Sylvan regrets inventing Keurig coffee pod system
• Keurig K-Cup recycling program that turns coffee pods into cement looks to expand

Like most municipalities, Quebec City says its recycling centre can't accept the plastic capsules left behind after the coffee is brewed.

To address this,Tassimosigned up with TerraCycle Canada, a company which provided a free service picking up the cups at people's homes.Butas of April, TerraCycle ended that service, instead opening 10 locations around the province where people can drop them off.

But, none of them are in the Quebec City area. Other regions includingSherbrooke andTrois-Rivires, Gasp region, are also left in the lurch.

Vanessa Farquharson, a spokesperson for TerraCycle,said twogroups in Quebec City filed applications seeking to open drop-off locations, but did not meet the criteria.

"It came down to a lot of things too,in terms of people being willing to open their doors to the public, in schools or places where there are security issues," she said.

Anotheroption available to consumersis to ship the cups to the companyfor a $50 fee,Farquharson said.

When the pods are recycled,shesaid they are"turned into a hard plastic lumber that is usually used to make boardwalks,park benches or picnic tables."

Environmental concerns

Thecoffee pods made by Tassimo and other companies have become a source of controversy, with critics decrying them as an environmental hazard.

John Sylvan, the inventor of the popularK-Cup coffee pod, said earlier this yearhe regrets coming up with the idea.

According to a wildly popularad campaign against the product, there are so many discarded K-Cups that if you lined them up it would be enough to circle the earth more than 10 times and that's just from one year's worth of coffee pods.

Research firm NPD Group recently estimated that about40 per cent of Canadian homeshave a single-serving coffee machine, and Canadians spent $95 million on them last year.