This eco-friendly coffee brand wants to rid landfills of plastic pods

The coffee pod market has ballooned so much in recent years that it is expected to overtake instant and ground coffee as soon as 2020 — but its popularity represents a huge environmental problem.

The majority of those handy, single-serve plastic coffee capsules are never recycled. Halo, a UK-based ethical coffee pod brand that launched on Monday, claims more than 20 billion coffee pods containing aluminium or plastic are produced each year.

Halo co-founder Nils Leonard — the former executive creative chairman of ad agency Grey London told Business Insider: “We believe it [coffee capsule waste] will be illegal in a few years’ time.”

Halo claims to have created the “world’s first” fully compostable coffee capsule, which is compatible with home Nespresso machines.

There are other compostable coffee capsules on the market, but they usually require being sent to a municipal composting facility. Halo’s pods can be tossed in the kitchen food bin and biodegrade completely within 90 days — compared to the 150 to 200 years it takes for aluminium to begin breaking down.

Cofounder Richard Hardwick tells us they’re so compostable, he is even growing tomatoes from them.

The product itself is high-end: Kopi Lawak Diamond, Panamanian Geisha, Royal Kona, and Three Mountain — bespoke blends of rare coffees, roasted by Antica Tostatura Triestina in Italy.