Nespresso coffee pods recycled into compost help LA soil post fires

If you’ve recycled a Nespresso capsule recently, your spent coffee grounds could help Los Angeles recover from the devastating January 2025 wildfires.

Nespresso is donating 100,000 pounds of compost, made in part from recycled coffee capsules, to City Plants LA, a nonprofit that plants and cares for trees across the city. The Swiss brand will deliver the compost in three batches, and recently sent off its first batch of about 30,000 pounds to the nonprofit.

Nearly a year after the Palisades and Eaton wildfires, the soil across Los Angeles county is still impacted. Wildfires contaminate soil with heavy metals, alter its nutrient contents, and increase the risk of erosion. 

Compost can help restore that soil, adding in nutrients and binding with contaminants.

City Plants will use the compost from Nespresso to replant or save trees that survived the wildfires, as well as on new trees it’s planting throughout L.A. It expects to distribute more than 8,500 trees to L.A. residents. (Residents can also pick up compost from the nonprofit.)

To create compost, Nespresso’s partners use a mix of organic materials, so coffee grounds can make up between 5 to 20% of the final product. That 100,000 pounds of compost donated to L.A. will be made up of about 5,000 recycling bags of Nespresso capsules, or about 20,000 pounds of coffee grounds. 

How Nespresso recycles 

This isn’t Nespresso’s first time turning its coffee grounds into compost. The company has long worked with composting company AgChoice as part of a complimentary recycling program. 

Customers can recycle their used capsules by mailing back bags of spent pods or dropping them off at Nespresso stores. (In New York City and Jersey City only, customers can also toss used capsules into their curbside recycling bins.)

From there, its partners extract the coffee grounds from the aluminum, turning the grounds into compost, and the metal into new objects, including Nespresso capsules, pens, or even bikes. 

In the wake of the Los Angeles wildfires, though, the coffee company wanted to do something specifically for Southern California, and so launched this effort, called Grounds to Grow LA.

“We were trying to figure out, how do we find a project that could provide meaning to us and also our community?” says Amy Uong, senior recycling manager at Nespresso USA. 

Making composting relatable

Nespresso connected to City Plants, and, throughout the fall, put out a call to action to its California customers, encouraging donations at the 13 Nespresso stores throughout the state. 

However, since composting takes time, the 100,000 pounds that will be donated to City Plants includes compost processed before the project began, collected from across the country. 

Still, by appealing to California customers and focusing on wildfire restoration, Nespresso hopes to make the recycling process more tangible to its customers—and increase recycling participation.

Currently, Nespresso’s recycling rate is 35%; it aims to reach 60% by 2030. 

“It was really about, how do we influence more consumers? How do we give them meaning to participate in the recycling program?” Uong says. 

Recycling can be abstract to consumers, she admits; they may put something into a bin, but they don’t see what it becomes. 

“But with the coffee grounds turning into compost, it’s something they can see. They can see a tree on the street or in their backyard; the residents can go and pick it up. They’re now active in that process.”