Nespresso is a company that works from the tagline ‘The Sustainable Quality Coffee Company. The company's investment in producing sustainable products has led them to discover and support the use of aluminum when possible in their items. Nespresso used aluminum because, in their own words, “Aluminum is the best material available today to protect our highest quality coffees.”

Why Aluminum Was the First Choice for Nestle Nespresso in Making its Coffees

Perhaps aluminum’s most attractive element to a sustainably-minded company like Nespresso is that it’s environmentally sustainable. It is infinitely recyclable, for example, which means aluminum can be re-used again and again and again and again. This preserves our environment while keeping costs low on material production and manufacturing. Within the context of Nespresso though, here’s where aluminum is more or less necessary.

You hit the button. You produce a delicious cup of coffee with all those familiar aromas of Nespresso. You drop the empty capsule into the garbage and then it goes away. Is that it? Absolutely not. First off, with a Nespresso aluminum coffee capsule, you drop it into recycling instead of the garbage. From there, you’re setting it off on a new adventure. In the recycling supply chain, you’ll eventually see this same coffee capsule recycled into something new – airplanes, cars, bicycles, and more have been made from aluminum just like this.

It’s easy for a company in Nespresso’s shoes to produce a cheap coffee capsule that you can throw away. Contrary to what others have done, Nespresso uses in its capsule a raw material of the highest value, fully recyclable. Aluminum’s use says a lot about what’s important to a corporation like Nespresso.

Why Aluminum

Aluminum is lightweight and easily manipulated so that it can be formed and re-formed into almost any shape as needed. It helps to reduce a company’s environmental footprint while avoiding the overexploitation of the Earth’s resources.

Nespresso uses aluminum in its Grand Crus because it can provide an airtight seal. It’s used in armour and as a container in a capsule like this, to successfully protect the ground coffee from oxygen, moisture, heat, and light. This keeps the aromas in and the product encased. Nespresso has been using aluminum since the 1990s, focusing on sustainably sourcing aluminum for its suppliers worldwide and ensuring recycling facilities are in place to accept capsules post-use.

By 2020, Nespresso is aiming to have 100% sustainably sourced aluminum, collaborating with recycling stakeholders from around the world to ensure this happens. Nespresso is far from the only company that is using aluminum in this capacity however its example is important. Coffee capsules produce a lot of waste and they’re a consumer favourite. If materials like aluminum aren’t used, this only creates more landfill waste that we’re going to have to answer for at one point in the future.

Nespresso continues to encourage its customers to return the capsules to Nespresso which provides anyone with an easy route to recycle the aluminum in them. Automakers, packaging producers, and members of the aeronautics industry have seen the way Nespresso uses the material and they are now changing the way they do things to create more recycling-friendly systems. As we continue to move forward, from an environmental perspective, aluminum continues to be a sought-after material by corporations like Nespresso and rightfully so.