The Science
Compostable Coffee Capsules - The Facts…
More than just a regular compostable coffee capsule
Aluminum and plastic coffee capsules are now becoming extremely harmful to our planet and actually take up to 500 years for them to fully biodegrade, unfortunately ending up in landfill and oceans.
There are now a variety of compostable capsules available, however, most are currently made of PLA and therefore suitable for industrial composting only. These alternative PLA capsules are not home compostable and tend to cause more confusion amongst consumers.
The WWF coffee capsules are unique and carefully created using a natural compound PHA (Polyhydroxyalkanoates).
PHA is produced by numerous microorganisms, including through bacterial fermentation of bio derived feedstocks and are both biodegradable and compostable.
The entire capsule, including the lid and seal will break down naturally without harming the environment and produced exclusively using energy generated from wind, sun, hydropower and biogas.
Our planet-friendly capsules are now available, offering a sustainable alternative to the huge problem of plastic pollution.
We put them to
the test...
We put WWF compostable capsules and two other leading brands in a domestic compost heap and measured the results.
All three capsules were placed in the same enviroment, in exactly the same conditions to ensure a fair test.
After 90 days it was very clear that the WWF PHA capsule was the only one that had started to biodegrade.
After 180 days (6 months) the WWF PHA capsule was more than 90% fully composted.
Both the Aluminium and PLA capsules however, showed no signs of decomposition.
