Coffee packaging
Coffee packaging is often made from multi-layered laminated material, which isn’t always recyclable. When it is, it must be processed using special machinery to separate those layers and there aren’t many of those facilities in the UK.
It’s very easy for a company to be able to print “100% recyclable” or “100% compostable” on a bag, and it can be technically true. The problem is in the detail. Many commonly available coffee bags can’t be recycled in the UK, but can be in the EU, others require you to drop them off at a recycling centre or large supermarket as they’re not able to be processed by domestic collections. This lack of clarity and consistency means they wind up in landfill more often than not.
This sucks.
We wanted our packaging to be easily recycled, and aluminium cans are the worlds most recycled object.
•Over 82% were recycled in the UK in 2021 - that’s a higher recycling rate than paper.
•They’re accepted in all domestic curbside recycling collections in the UK.
•Recycling aluminium uses 95% less energy than producing aluminium from raw material.
•Aluminium cans contain an average of 73% recycled material.
•They provide an air-tight and UV-free environment for our roasted coffee meaning it’s better preserved than many other options.
Our labels
We design, print, cut and apply the labels at Manifesto. With nothing outsourced we keep our wastage low - if we only need one label we can produce one label.
We use 100% recycled card and the labels are easy to remove and dispose of separately to the can.
FAQ
Find the most frequently asked questions below.
Quite simply because aluminium cans are the worlds most recycled object. In 2020 over 82% of cans produced were recycled in the UK.
Over 75% of all aluminium produced is still in use today.
The infrastructure for dealing with aluminium cans is both mature and advanced, meaning they're accepted in UK domestic recycling collections so you don't have to do anything special.
The devil is in the details. Most compostable packaging is made from PLA (Polylactic acid) which looks and feels like plastic. PLA is compostable, but requires very specific conditions that are mostly only achievable in industrial composting facilities. If it isn’t subject to these conditions it can take over 80 years to break down naturally.
Confusion over compostable/biodegradable/recyclable means that often consumers will put compostable material in recycling bins which at best means it winds up as landfill and in the worst cases can mean an entire batch of otherwise recyclable material must be discarded due to contamination.
Of course, and our cans can be reused. It’s what happens at the end of a products life that’s more important. A plastic water bottle can be reused, but if it isn’t recycled at the end of it being used then it still produces waste. With aluminium cans we’re happy knowing that whether they’re used once or many times, they’ll very likely wind up getting recycled.
Sorting facilities can pick out aluminium cans, separate them and ensure they get recycled. This fact is why aluminium cans have such a high recycling rate.
No. Valves not only release O2 from the coffee, but also aromatics. Keeping our coffee sealed in our cans keeps it safe and prevents any aromatic volatiles from escaping so once it’s opened the coffee is still amazing.
No! Our cans are tough enough to withstand the pressure produced from outgassing coffee.
We source all our coffee either directly from producers or through importers who are willing to give us price transparency data so we know they’re getting a fair deal. All producers we source from earn more than fair trade prices for their coffee.
Specialty coffee at its core is simply coffee that has scored over 80 points on the SCA Cupping Standard. Unofficially, most specialty coffee companies also consider fairness, sustainability and transparency to be important to the term and you can definitely count us among them.
We post all our coffee using Royal Mail Tracked 48 or Tracked 24 meaning if you’re based in the UK you’ll get your coffee within about 48 hours of us posting it. Keep in mind weekends and bank holidays can throw a spanner in the works!