Skip to content

Everyday swaps

Coffee pods: reusable steel pod or ground coffee

A capsule a day is over a kilo of plastic and aluminium a year; a refillable steel pod or a stovetop and cafetiere removes it.

Swap out
Single-use coffee capsules
Swap in
Refillable steel capsule or ground coffee
Impact
4 / 5
Cost
2 / 3
Effort
2 / 3
Grams of plastic avoided per person per year
1100
Break-even
A A$30 refillable pod pays back in about a month against A$1 capsules
Watch out for
Compostable capsules are usually PLA, a plant-based plastic that needs the high heat of industrial composting; aluminium capsules are only recycled through the brand's take-back scheme.

Use a refillable stainless steel capsule with your own ground coffee, or switch to a cafetiere, stovetop or filter. If you keep capsules, use the brand's take-back scheme.

A plastic capsule is around 3 g; one a day is about 1.1 kg a year. Compostable capsules are usually PLA and need industrial composting; University College London (UCL)'s Big Compost Experiment found most home-compostable-labelled items did not disappear in real heaps.

The catch: refillable pods take a minute to fill and tamp, and results vary by machine; aluminium capsules are recyclable only through dedicated take-back.

Page updated 24 September 2026. How we check sources