Every year, over 50 billion K-Cups® and coffee pods are used worldwide. Most end up in landfills or incinerators, not because people don’t want to recycle them, but because they’re nearly impossible to recycle efficiently.

‍

Why? It’s all about multi-material packaging. A typical coffee pod is made of:

✅ (PP) plastic – The outer cup

✅ Aluminum foil – The lid

✅ Paper filter – Holds the coffee

✅ Coffee grounds – Organic waste

‍

♻️ why not just recycle them? It’s not that simple:

• Each component requires a separate recycling stream
• The pods are small, making them difficult to capture in sorting facilities
• Wet coffee grounds contaminate the plastic and paper, making processing harder
• The cost of separating these materials exceeds the value of what’s recovered K-Cups® and coffee pods are everywhere - but recycling them? That’s a serious challenge.

‍

Traditional mechanical recycling struggles with multi-component packaging, and separating plastic, aluminum, and coffee grounds isn’t practical or economical at scale.

‍

At Anellotech, we’re doing things differently. Instead of trying to separate these materials, our Plas-TCat® technology processes them as they are, converting the plastic into valuable aromatics and olefins - the same building blocks used to make new plastics and packaging.

‍

We’re scaling our technology to enable a fully circular economy.

Unlike traditional recycling, which struggles with multi-material packaging, Plas-TCat and Bio-TCat can process coffee pods as they are:

• Polypropylene (PP) → Aromatics (BTX) and light olefins for new plastics
• Paper filters → Aromatics and fuels
• Coffee grounds → Aromatics and fuels
• Aluminum foil → Separated mechanically for metal recovery

‍

Anellotech's suite of advanced chemical recycling technologies can be tailored to specific feedstocks and desired product outputs.

• No need for expensive sorting or separation
• Converts waste directly into high-value chemicals
• Helps CPG companies meet circularity & sustainability goals

‍

Imagine a world where every coffee pod can be transformed into new materials instead of becoming landfill waste. That future is possible - let’s make it happen.