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Businesses will be able to recycle coffee cups using collection boxes | Credit: DS Smith
Packaging firm targets the millions of disposable coffee cups used by commuters, which it says are falling through the gaps of the recycling system
Every day thousands of coffee cups are discarded by weary commuters on their arrival at their office, with only a tiny fraction collected by dedicated cup recycling bins.
Packaging firm DS Smith hopes to change that, with the launch yesterday of a new collection scheme to round up coffee cups disposed of in the workplace.
Packaging firm DS Smith has designed a “drop box” with capacity for up to 700 coffee cups, for companies to site in their offices. When full, the boxes will be collected from businesses by Royal Mail and returned to DS Smith’s paper mill in Kent, to be made into new paper packaging products.
Nearly 60 per cent of British workers dispose of the coffee cups at work, making it a critical battleground in efforts to increase recycling, according to the firm. Some 30,000 tonnes of coffee cup waste are generated each year in the UK, according to evidence provided to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee inquiry on coffee cup waste, yet just one in 25 cups are recycled.
Last year, DS Smith announced capacity to recycle 2.5 billion coffee cups at its mill in Kent. But it has struggled to collect enough cups to recycle, hampered by the lack of dedicated collection points.
“We need to ensure these cups reach us separate from other waste,” said Jochen Behr, head of recycling at the firm. “Through our Coffee Cup Drop Box we can provide the much-needed national infrastructure to reduce the 7.8 million coffee cups that are currently falling through the gap on commutes, in offices and across the UK.”
More than half of adults believe that when they put their used coffee cups in recycling bins, they are turned into new products, according to a survey by YouGov for DS Smith. But disposable cups’ plastic lining means they need to be specially treated at dedicated plants. Most cups put in council-run recycling bins will be sent for incineration.
In related news, analysts at Wood Mackenzie found that replacing the 7.7 billion plastic water bottles used each year in the UK with aluminium would require 99,000 tonnes of additional aluminium sheet stock.
Consumption of bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is increasing, partly due to people choosing the healthier option of a bottle of water over a can of fizzy drink, the analysts said. In the EU, each person uses 140 PET bottles per person per year, with 30 per cent sent to landfill. In the US, consumers use 290 PET bottles each, 70 per cent of which are landfilled.
Drinks manufacturers around the world have been launching products in aluminium instead of plastic. However, Wood Mackenzie said that aluminium packaging was likely to cost more to produce, and use more energy to transport.
A study published last month by the Green Alliance highlighted the relative environmental impacts of different packaging materials. Aluminium, glass, cartons, and plastic packaging were assessed for levels of production waste, carbon emissions, and end of life. All were found to have significant problems.
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