Kenco Reducing Coffee Packaging Waste With Style

by Mike on November 4, 2009 in Coffee News,Videos

I wanted to give a shout out to Kenco, a British coffee company that’s making huge strides to reduce the waste that goes along with their consumer packaging.

Their coffee is traditionally sold in glass single use glass jars. Now, they’re asking their customers to reuse those containers and buy their eco-refills. The eco-refills are bags with 97% less packaging waste.

To get people’s attention about their new eco-refills, they’re running a video campaign with Amanda Holden from Britain’s Got Talent.

The campaign encourages Brits to re-think their trash and join The Kenco Eco Refill Waste Less Challenge. The new ‘packaging diet’ highlights simple ways to “lose waste.” Refilling and reusing empty coffee jars alone could mean 26,000 less tons of packaging waste sent to the landfills in Great Britain each year.

To kick off the campaign, the residents of three Waste Lanes around the country are challenged to dramatically reduce their packaging waste over the next four weeks to inspire others to join up. The results are being featured in a special online documentary called ‘Life in the Waste Lane’, which are being shown on www.kenco.co.uk and www.youtube.com/kenco.

The Eco Refill pack is the second step that Kenco has taken to improve their eco-friendly habits. Last year Kenco made a commitment to source the coffee for its entire stock from Rainforest Alliance Certified™ sources by 2010.

So which American corporations are going to step up and make similar eco-friendly improvements? I know there’s a lot smaller independent and family owned making difference, but what about some major corporations?

Daily Shot Of Coffee November Roundup I can’t believe that November is over already! It sees...

Tagged as: Kenco

Article by Mike Crimmins

Mike Crimmins is the highly caffeinated blogger behind Daily Shot Of Coffee. Besides drinking way too much coffee, he's obsessed with the Yankees and getting dirty on his mountain bike.

Mike has written 584 awesome articles.

Subscribe to Daily Shot Of Coffee feed via RSS to receive updates. We also have a weekly newsletter.

Did you know? You can support this site by visiting the Daily Shot Of Coffee Shop. Thank you for your support.

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

Devon Hernandez November 5, 2009 at 2:08 pm

I could really go into a long deal about supporting local economy vs. big corporations here…but I’ll spare you

Suffice it to say, I admire big companies that try to do more green efforts and offer fair-trade and organic coffees; that being said, I think smaller companies are the way to go on this front. They are not so spread out and far-reaching, which makes it harder for one to control TRUE greening of your business. The bigger you are, the bigger your carbon footprint, the more waste, the less eco-friendly…irregardless of how much effort you’re putting into being green. Maybe I’m being pessimistic. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad Starbucks does what they do to help contribute on the green front (people and planet), and I buy from/visit Starbucks. I much prefer though, to keep my dollars in a local environment, which is a green commitment in and of itself.

While I was musing on this, I couldn’t help but think of the “green” greeting cards I’ve seen at places – the ones that come with envelopes that are biodegradable, made from postconsumer recycled paper, printed on with soy-based ink, and have wild flower seeds embedded in them, so you can plant the envelope instead of burning it or trashing it. Wouldn’t that be cool if companies starting using that in their coffee bean bags? Creating less waste, increasing flora which helps with soil erosion and producing more oxygen and decreasing the large amount of harmful gases, maybe help with the bee population thing, and aesthetic value? Maybe, due to the nature of the product and needing vacuum-sealed bags, this wouldn’t be possible. But it’s a cool dream

Mike November 5, 2009 at 11:11 pm: I agree with 100 percent, but I think it’s important for the large companies to make changes because their carbon footprint, etc is so large. By changing their packaging (and I like that greeting card idea), the large companies can make a huge difference.

But just for the record. As far as local vs big corporations, I’ll most likely choose local…just for the record.

Reply

Devon Hernandez November 6, 2009 at 12:26 am

Oh I agree, I think it’s important too for large companies – I probably didn’t explain myself correctly. Going green isn’t necessarily always cheaper at first, and certainly bigger companies can afford, more so than smaller ones, to invest in the long haul. For instance, Burts Bees I heard went completely wind-powered electricity for their Durham, NC factory/warehouse/headquarters. They had to specially buy that electricity, which costs slightly more for them, but it’s obviously a much “greener” form of electric. Small companies couldn’t afford to do something like that. I do think it’s important that big companies strive for that kind of dedication; what I meant, I guess, was that, say, if you’re a Joe Shmoe “green” consumer that wants to buy the most eco-friendly coffee, you’re probably better off buying from a small local roaster that (hopefully) provides fairly traded and/or organic and operates greenly in their immediate area, vs. a larger company that may be Green Business Certified and uses alternate electricity sources to produce their product but is global and *still* has a rather large carbon footprint with shipping and delivery all over the world/country.

Plus, local stuff’s gonna be fresher roasted and taste more delish And you’re helping to support “your neighbors!” Always a good thing!

And yeah that greeting card envelope thing is pretty freaking sweet! Smart people out there

Mike November 6, 2009 at 8:12 am: Now I’m back on the same page with you. I missed your point before – my bad – one hundred percent agreeing now. And that’s even before I’ve had a full cup of coffee.

Reply