VALENCIA IS COMMITTED TO RECYCLING NESPRESSO ALUMINUM CAPSULES

Most Spanish households have coffee preparation machines that generate a large amount of waste, including coffee capsules. However, there is not much knowledge about how these aluminum capsules are recycled.

Years ago, Nespresso chose aluminum for its capsules because it is infinitely recyclable and can be reused in the manufacture of other products. To promote circularity, this material was collected and recycled at 1,900 points in large supermarkets where Nespresso machines can be purchased or at a municipal waste collection point in Valencia.

The Nespresso brand, together with the Generalitat Valenciana and the València City Council, have launched a pilot project for the collection, sorting and recycling of aluminum and light steel products. Precisely, since last July, coffee capsules can be deposited in the 2,500 yellow containers distributed throughout the Valencian capital. And not only coffee capsules, but also other items such as aluminum foil, aluminum sealing foil, small candles, tubes of toothpaste and aluminum cans.

On the other hand, Nespresso has designed and installed a new Foucault machine to increase the uptake of small containers in Picassent. The new technological solution is by means of existing eddy currents, and is present in packaging waste management plants.

In this way, Valencia has gone from being the city in Spain that did not have any sustainable collection device to become the first Spanish city with an intelligent and modern collection system. These last three years have been productive for the Nespresso team, as they have worked closely with Valencian institutions to such an extent that it became a public-private project.