Coffee bags

This week we’re going to take a look at the humble coffee bag.  I’ve been searching for a fully recyclable bag which has all of the elements needed to both store your coffee in the manner to which it should be accustomed and be sturdy enough to arrive at your place of residence undamaged.  It turns out that this is not an easy task.  The natural kraft bags which I’ve been using and which are common across the industry are, in fact, relatively difficult to recycle.  This is because they have a number of different layers (the two main layers being the kraft paper layer and an inner aluminium layer) and are therefore classified as composite packaging which is not readily recyclable.  There is one service which can take composite packaging, separate the layers and then recycle the components and this service is TerraCycle (https://www.terracycle.com/en-AU/).
I have found one fully recyclable coffee bag which includes a one-way valve for effective degassing of your coffee.  It is made of mono-polymer polyethylene and can be recycled via the REDcycle program (https://redcycle.net.au/) with bins readily found at most supermarkets.  I’m currently transitioning all of our packaging to this mono-polymer PE format and some of you will have already received coffee in these bags (they’re the white ones).
Unfortunately I have not yet found a coffee bag which can be recycled via your curb-side service.  I’ll certainly keep looking!
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