Better Bags | Introducing Our New Packaging

March 19th 2025

It’s been around a year since we first started looking into alternative packaging options for our retail coffee, and it's been quite the journey to get to this stage. We quietly rolled out these 250g and 1kg soft plastic recyclable bags last month whilst awaiting an answer regarding their recyclability, but we've just had the good news that they're manufactured with the right makeup of mixed plastics to successfully be recycled through the Recycle Kiwi sot plastic scheme, which was our goal all along for this iteration of our packaging!

We reckon they're looking pretty swish in their new matte black and gold colourway, but the main reason for the switch was to be more responsible for the waste we’re creating, to provide a product that can be effectively recycled and repurposed.

Soft Plastic vs Compostable

When Sugar raised the idea of finding a more sustainable solution for our coffee bags, we dove into researching the different materials used for coffee bags, exploring the pros and cons of each. We've been distributing our wholesale coffee to our local wholesale network in reusable tins and buckets for years, but we needed a solution for our home brewing community who purchase coffee beans from our Cellar Door and through our website.

We debated between soft plastic and compostable materials, constantly rethinking our decision with each article we read, each opinion from fellow roasters around the world we listened to, and learning about how we could effectively recycle the product we chose. While choosing soft plastic initially felt counterintuitive, our research brought us to the understanding that Aotearoa is currently better equipped to recycle soft plastics than compostable materials for the average kiwi.

Why Not Compostable?

As of February 2024, all councils nationwide standardised what could go into kerbside recycling and compost bins. Taking a cautious approach to the risks of recycling composting packaging, the change unfortunately excluded all manufactured compostable products from either bin, so now all compostable packaging must go into the red bin.

Compostable packaging collection schemes are becoming harder to access in New Zealand, and we found there are currently no commercial compostable collection options in Canterbury taking on new clients. Compostable bags may break down in home compost setups, but this requires proper conditions and work that most New Zealanders aren’t currently doing, so we felt this option wasn’t viable.

Why Soft Plastic?

We’ve been working with EcoBarista in Australia for a while now, using their soft plastic bags for our 250g retail single origin coffees. They do a wide range of eco-friendly packaging options, but since their soft plastic bags are tried and tested with us, it made sense to change all of our packaging to this same style. Their mission is to create eco-friendly packaging that can be repurposed, and we’re thrilled to offer packaging that supports this goal. The gold foiling and paper labels on the bag are recyclable too, the only requirements are that the valve is removed and the bag is clean.

 

The Packaging Forum’s  Soft Plastic Recycling Scheme provides a system for New Zealanders to recycle soft plastic bags and wrappers. The collection points for this scheme are widespread, easily accessible, and the collections are sent directly to two main companies here in Aotearoa, who recycle and repurpose these plastics.

Future Post uses the collected soft plastics mixed with other plastics to manufacture plastic fence posts, vegetable gardens and parking bumpers. SaveBOARD uses soft plastic materials to manufacture sustainable building materials including insulation boards.

How To Recycle Soft Plastic

A majority of New Zealanders now have access to a Soft Plastic Recycling Scheme collection point in their local area - here’s a list of all participating stores for you to find your closest collection point. Nelson is currently trialling a kerbside system for soft plastics collection, funded by The Packaging Forum - we hope this trial proves to be a success so we can see soft plastics become even easier to recycle alongside our other recyclables at home.

Until recently, we were unsure of whether Recycle Kiwi would accept these bags, so in the interim we had also set up a collection point at our Cellar Door with Terracycle, who specialise in recycling hard-to-recycle items. We will continue to offer this drop-off system alongside the publicly available Recycle Kiwi bins, and we welcome any of our customers to drop their used bags into this bin.

With the Soft Plastic Recycling Scheme working directly with the companies who receive and recycle the collected soft plastics, and our Terracycle bin going straight back to the Terracycle HQ, we feel confident that we can collectively ensure these bags are properly recycled, diverting our packaging from landfills and repurposed into something useful. We believe that soft plastic bags are currently the best option for us to achieve this.

If you aren’t already recycling your household soft plastic waste, it’s super easy to drop off at a collection point, and we hope to encourage our coffee community to recycle their empty coffee bags instead of throwing them away. We also welcome our subscription and wholesale office customers to save up their old bags and send them back to us for recycling. 

We want to see as many of our coffee bags as possible being repurposed into fence posts and insulation boards, and are here to help however we can! Our aim is to one day have these bags custom printed, with information on recycling them included.

What If I Want To Eliminate Packaging Altogether?

Last year we introduced Coffee Embassy branded Sammy Bags which we wrote about a few months ago. Sugar wanted to ensure the legacy of the kraft brown bag continued once we moved away from them in the name of doing better for the planet, and we also wanted to offer a great zero-waste option for our customers to grab their coffee for home rather than picking a bag off the shelf. We’ve just had another batch of Sammy Bags made, and we’re excited to now also offer the 1kg version for those who buy their coffee in larger amounts.

We also have regular customers who bring in their jars, buckets, and old coffee bags to be refilled, and we invite you to do the same. We’re now offering a small discount on any reusable vessel you bring to purchase your coffee beans in, to say thanks for doing your bit to eliminate the need for packaging altogether.

We’re excited to share with you this fresh look for our retail offering, that’s most importantly doing better for the planet. As we continue making changes to how we do business for the better, our wish is to keep sharing our journey with you - great consideration goes into each decision we make as a team and it’s important to us that we remain transparent and informative about why we do what we do. We’re so grateful to each person who takes the time to read our Better Coffee Journal entries and we welcome the continuation of these conversations with you any time!