TRENTON, NJ (February 20, 2025) – TerraCycle, a global leader of innovative sustainability solutions, has introduced CafeCycle, a national recycling solution that helps coffee shops and cafés recycle items that typically aren’t accepted by municipal recycling services. This includes used coffee bags, coffee capsules and packs, cups, stirrers, plastic bottles, snack wrappers, and more. With an estimated 500 billion disposable cups discarded globally each year—16 billion in the U.S. alone—most of which end up in landfills or incinerators—CafeCycle offers an easy and effective way for businesses to reduce waste.
“Coffee shops rely on single-use items that often end up in landfills because they’re not accepted in curbside recycling,” said Tom Szaky, Founder and CEO of TerraCycle. “CafeCycle provides a simple, ready-to-use solution that helps businesses recycle these materials with minimal effort—just fill a box, send it back, and we take care of the rest.”
From espresso capsules and coffee bags to stirrers and snack wrappers, CafeCycle offers specialized Zero Waste Boxes to capture and recycle all of these materials and more, including:
- CafeCycle Coffee Capsules – Zero Waste Box
- CafeCycle Coffee and Tea Accessories – Zero Waste Box
- CafeCycle Candy and Snack Wrappers – Zero Waste Box
- CafeCycle Coffee Bags – Zero Waste Box
- CafeCycle Plastic Bottles – Zero Waste Box
- CafeCycle #6 Rigid Plastic Cups – Zero Waste Box
- CafeCycle All-In-One – Zero Waste Box
To participate, businesses simply order the appropriate CafeCycle Zero Waste Box and place it in a convenient spot to collect consumers’ coffee waste. When full, the boxes are returned to TerraCycle using the affixed prepaid shipping label. The collected waste will be sorted, with coffee grounds composted and the remaining materials cleaned, melted, and remolded into pellets that can be used to make new products, like plastic storage bins and more.
Coffee shops and cafés looking to reduce waste and integrate recycling into their daily operations can get started today by visiting shop.terracycle.com/en-US/pages/cafecycle. To learn more about how TerraCycle partners with businesses to recycle traditionally hard-to-recycle waste, visit www.terracycle.com.
About TerraCycle
TerraCycle is an international leader in innovative sustainability solutions, creating and operating first-of-their-kind platforms in recycling, recycled materials, and reuse. Across 21 countries, TerraCycle is on a mission to eliminate waste and develop practical solutions for today’s complex waste challenges. The company engages an expansive multi-stakeholder community across a wide range of accessible programs, from Fortune 500 companies to schools and individuals. To learn more about TerraCycle and join them on their journey to move the world from a linear economy to a circular one, please visit www.terracycle.com.
