The Best Thing About Nespresso Pods is That You Can Turn Them Into Bikes

I never did like coffee pods. But this is neither the time nor place for snobbery. *Sips on God shot flat white*.

It’s easy to see why caffeine capsules spread like an infestation: they are a convenient way to satisfy a drug addiction, available in all kinds of candied versions of the real thing. *Hits Juul*.

But what really sucks about these plug-and-play thimbles is that they don’t play well with Mother Earth. Their negative impact on the environment was considered so bad that, in 2016, the city of Hamburg outright banned single-use coffee pods.

It therefore gave me great pleasure to learn that Nestle, the patron of Nespresso machines, has partnered with Sweden-based start-up Vélosophy Cycles to turn Nespresso pods into bikes. This is inarguably the best thing about Nespresso pods.

Hell, yeah:

What you see there is a frame constructed of 300 aluminum coffee pods (that’ll be $2,000 CDN, please). Naturally, it only comes in Arpeggio purple – named after Nespresso’s flagship pod.

In keeping with the pay it forward ethos, for every Nespresso bike sold Vélosophy pledges to provide one girl in Ghana with a bike to get to school. “What is otherwise looked at as waste is given new life as a bike,” writes Vélosophy aptly in the product description. Admittedly more novelty than function, the bike also comes with two cup holders. The company plans to produce 1,000 of the upcycled vehicles.

“RE:CYCLE has an iconic design, grounded in sustainability, that brings to life the potential of recycling our aluminum coffee capsules,” says Justin DeGeorge, vice president of marketing at Nespresso. “Our unique collaboration pays tribute to the beauty of aluminum, which can be recycled again and again, and demonstrates the potential of the circular economy.”

Now we just need someone to work on turning Juul pods into affordable housing.