Coffee giant Tassimo, the creators of an incredibly successful system of “pods” which are slotted into at-home machines to make the perfect cup of coffee, tea, or hot chocolate, have announced that they have solved their recycling problems by partnering with Terracycle, an American company which specialises in collecting and processing difficult to deal with waste.

Previously, one aluminium-and-plastic Tassimo coffee pod had to be simply thrown away every time a drink was made, and with hundreds of thousands of machines installed in homes up and down the country, that’s millions of pods creating landfill per year. This fact naturally worried the company, who began to look for a solution. The difficulty in recycling the tiny containers came because the plastic and metal components are bonded together, making a simple separation for recycling purposes more difficult than usual.

However, respected recycling company Terracycle has found a way forward and is in the process of setting up Tassimo recycling points, where customers can simply drop off any Tassimo packaging, including the pods and the foil bags they came in. The waste will be re-made into items such as watering cans, park benches, or even plastic recycling bins.

The company offers a further advantage – each shop or location who offers to host a Tassimo recycling box – called the Terracycle Brigade – will be given special Terracycle points for every kilo of waste collected, which can be redeemed into a monetary donation to a school or charity of their choosing. Any suitable location – such as a library, school, shop or even office can apply to be a member of the scheme, and there is no charge for taking part. The removal of the waste via courier is also covered, so organisations will not be left out of pocket if they choose to participate.

The Terracycle Brigade currently boasts 323 recycling locations across the UK, and has collected over nine million pods for processing altogether, raising over £150,000 for good causes.

If you love coffee but find there is no Terracycle collecting point near you, never fear, you can still look after the environment. Instead of purchasing pre-filled coffee pods, you can choose to use a re-usable coffee disc that you fill with grounds yourself. It’s a little fiddly, to be sure, but worth it to save the environment.

Or alternatively, how about a coffee pod that completely dissolves? An inventor called Eason Chow has created just that. Based on your favourite sugar-coated chocolates (in other words, Smarties) the coffee core is wrapped in a layer of dried milk and then a layer of crisp sugar shell. Pop it in his specially made cute little machine, which is named the Droops machine and you have a totally waste-free drink. The new invention will be available soon