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A company that produces compostable coffee pods received a rude awakening last week after learning that Ottawa plans to keep banning the pods from city green bins.

“We were furious,” says John Pigott, chief executive officer of Club Coffee.

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The city announced last week it has restructured its green-bin contract with Orgaworld to allow plastic bags and dog feces to be included in the organic waste Ottawans send to a plant in rural south Ottawa.

As proposed, the expanded list of items doesn’t include the compostable coffee pods. In a report, city staff expressed concern about the ability of the organics plant to break down the product.

“This is an area that is still in flux with respect to establishing standards for producers of biodegradable and compostable packaging,” the staff report says. “There is not enough reliable testing to determine how such packaging would fare in Orgaworld’s aerobic composting process (early test results indicate that the rings in one type of compostable coffee pod do not break down in sufficient time, for example).”