Delivering Fresh Coffee, Cutting Down Plastic Waste: Why We Use Recycled Ocean Plastic Mailers

At Coffee Scout, our job is simple: get fresh, specialty coffee to you without the wait, and we aim to do that without creating more waste than we have to. That’s why every Coffee Scout order arrives in a POLLAST!C mailer.

POLLAST!C mailers are made by Better Packaging Co. and they’re designed to tackle plastic waste at the source. They’re made entirely from recycled ocean-bound plastic, which is plastic waste collected from coastal communities in South East Asia where it would otherwise wash into the ocean. It’s estimated that 11 million metric tonnes of plastic enter the ocean every year, which is about a rubbish truck’s worth every single minute. By turning this plastic into durable mailers, POLLAST!C helps clean up the environment and gives this waste a useful second life.

The mailers themselves are very lightweight but strong enough to protect your coffee on its way to your door. They’re also fully recyclable through soft plastics recycling streams (where available). Compared to traditional new plastic mailers, POLLAST!C mailers help reduce carbon emissions and stop new plastic from being produced unnecessarily. You can reuse them too. Most sizes have an extra seal so you can cut the used seal off and give the mailer a second life.

To keep waste as low as possible, we stock as many different sizes of POLLAST!C mailers as we can. This means every order uses just the right size mailer, instead of packing small orders into oversized bags that use more material than needed.

Coffee packaging can be wasteful by default, with a lot of single-use bags, fillers, and boxes that add up fast. We chose POLLAST!C because it’s practical, effective, and reduces our impact where we can. It’s still plastic, and it’s not perfect, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Roughly 80% of ocean plastic comes from land-based sources, much of it from coastal communities without access to proper waste management. By using POLLAST!C, we help intercept some of this waste before it reaches the ocean in the first place.

As a business delivering fresh coffee around Australia, we know shipping comes with its footprint. Using POLLAST!C is one way we keep ours as light as possible, so your coffee can arrive fresh without adding to the tide of waste.