Ah..
Me, being me… I would buy a similar coffee machine here in France, which does use the stuff which can be readily recycled here in France 
of course, if a machine bought elsewhere can use the stuff recyclable in France, all well and good… .
From early this year, any plastic material that comes into contact with food or drink intended for human consumption must be recyclable. Not sure what exceptions there may be if any. If your pods aren’t it may explain why you can’t buy them in France. Do you buy from Amazon France or UK ? Can you buy the machines in France ?
I buy the pods from Amazon France. It seems the alternative is to buy a Nespresso but that is a Nestlé brand and I don’t buy their products as I hate their business practices. We brought over a second Lavazza machine as a replacement should our first machine die. They produce a better cup of coffee than the standard Nespresso as the pods contain quite a lot more coffee. I think the newer Nespresso machines use bigger pods.
The original Nespresso pods are now out of copyright, so you can buy original Nespresso type pods from many different suppliers, including supermarket own brands. This is why Nestlé introduced their Dolce Gusto pods, to get back to a proprietary system!
The original pod compatible machines can also be obtained from other suppliers - the one I have is branded L’Or and made by Philips - it also takes L’Or’s own XXL (double-sized) pods which are good if you like to make a mugful at a time.
So no need to patronise Nestlé!
This is the one I have - on L’Or’s own website they currently have them on offer for €84.99 including 200 free pods:
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So is throwing two good machines away and buying a third better for the environment than emptying my used pods in the hope they are entirely recycled? Is the coffee as good as Lavazza?
machines can be recycled or given to someone in UK.
Buying something which is best for the environment etc of the country in which one is living seems a reasonable idea.
No idea to be honest!
You can get Lavazza coffee in original Nespresso pods (though not the XXLs, which only come with L’Or or Costa coffee I believe).
What I do with the small pods if I want a full mug is just leave the pod in the machine and run it again, on the “lungo” setting. 
We had a Kona coffee machine when living in the USA. It was quite fragile to look at and was not something I really liked using. À bit like experimenting in a lab rather than making coffee in a kitchen
We have different sizes of those little Italian espresso makers which go on stove tops and also different sized cafetières. Surely the best way to make coffee? For a cafetiere the amount of coffee can be altered for taste, it’s easy to use, the amount of made coffee can be calculated too to avoid wasted coffee Easy to clean and we use the coffee grounds in the garden, so surely more eco friendly than coffee pods, which to my taste are never strong enough or hot enough. Coffee in pods seem to me unnecessary. Perhaps someone could explain why they are a good thing?
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They are quick, easy, much less messy, and consistent. If you recycle the pods they are reasonably environmentally friendly.
As for hotness I don’t like scalding coffee, for strength it’s a matter of finding the right pod variety for you, just as it is with ground coffee.
Is freshly ground coffee nicer? Yes probably. But it’s a bit more faff IMHO.
Each to their own.
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Not something for me, thanks Chris
The pods also seem to take a while for the coffee to arrive out of the machine. Too weak and lukewarm.
Having tried all brands of coffee, the pods don’t offer the taste I require from good tasting coffee and don’t have the just ground taste either.
At least we balance each other out in the pod v real coffee debate.
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Just don’t plunge, its much nicer then
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That’s what I do too. 
Our L’or machine gives us hot, strong espressos. Don’t know where you get the idea they’re not like that unless you have tasted a weaker strength pod on lungo setting and it’s been left to cool.
My in laws had a machine given to them by one of their sons in the mistaken belief that it would be easier for them to make a cup of coffee. That’s what I am basing my opinion on plus once in a holiday cottage which had a nespresso machine. We ended up using their cafetière instead as the pods, in our opinion, as they don’t make a hot cup of coffee nor one to our taste.
Has anyone worked out the cost of making à cup of coffee using à pod of coffee and having first bought the machine too? I don’t know who first thought of making the coffee pod machine but I imagine it was a company reinventing the wheel for more profit. No offence intended to those who own a coffee pod machine and like the resulting coffee. As Chris Mann said, each to their own.
Leaving an existing already used pod in the machine to run more water through again must surely make the coffee even weaker?
I think the main factor here may be “the machine you used in your holiday cottage” versus all other pod machines. And the second factor is the kind of pod you put in.
Pods are graded for strength from about 5 to 13 (13 being the strongest) so if you like strong coffee and use a level 5 pod you will be disappointed.
As for heat, I have just made a mugful in my L’Or machine and even after adding milk it is still plenty hot, though not scaldingly so.
Yes if you run a small pod twice the coffee will be a bit weaker. But not by all that much in my experience (there is still coffee flavour in the grounds to be extracted after the first run) and again it depends on what strength of pod you start with.
Strength also depends on how much water you use - my machine has three settings, Ristretto, Espresso and Lungo. Set it to Ristretto and you get a small, strong coffee, especially if you use a level 11 or 13 pod!
I can also use the double-sized L’Or XXL pods, which I often do (on the Lungo setting) as I like a mug of coffee rather than a cup.
And last but not least, coffee machines need cleaning and descaling - it’s a fair bet that a holiday cottage machine, or a hand-me-down from in-laws, may not be in tip-top operating condition.
It was Nestlé who brought out the first Nespresso pod machine. And no it’s not “reinventing the wheel” - it’s a product for those of us who value convenience and don’t want to fiddle around with loose grounds and make a full cafetière of coffee every time, which also has to be washed up.
If you are a coffee purist and that floats your boat then fine, go ahead.
Incidentally, the patent on the original Nespresso pod design has now expired, so many third-party makers produce Nespresso-compatible pods at much lower prices, including supermarket brands.
Nestlé have moved on to a new proprietary pod format called Dolce Gusto.
I chose to get a Nespresso pod machine precisely because there is a much bigger choice of coffee flavours and prices are cheaper than for brand-limited pod machines.
I did. I reckoned, at 2 pods per cup and two cups per day, Saula (the one I mentioned, compostable paper pods) was about 40€ per month. The cost of that machine was, of course, negligible (like an inkjet printer): say 50€. A year worked out at around 500€.
Enter the beast: KRUPS Coffee Bean Grinder Machine, 2 Simultaneous Espresso, Automatic Cleaning, Cappuccino Steam Nozzle, Essential White EA810570 : Amazon.fr: Home & Kitchen and profitable after 7 months. And a bigger choice of coffee.
I did like the Nespresso pods, which surprised me, but not at that price.
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Tried most of the pods (Nespresso, tassimo, Senseo and one other) and still prefer my bean to cup machine coffee
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Fixed that for you.
Even my humble old filter coffee machine makes better quality, lower cost coffee.
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That looks like a good idea, Corona, for those who would like a machine to make their coffee for them. In my opinion, that brand always makes good products. I had a food processor from that country when in the USA.
I stand by my views on coffee pods and making coffee with a cafetiere. Much better using their cafetière latter version. There must be a lot of aluminium or plastic being used to make coffee pods and I would find it hard to believe that many are recycled either