Rise in the Recovery and Recycling Of Paper Cups, Says PCRRG Report

As per a new report published by the Paper Cup Recovery and Recycling Group (PCRRG), recycling of used paper cups has increased drastically over the last year. With its goal of making the majority of UK citizens have access to facilities enabling which can recover and recycle paper coffee cups by 2020, the agency said that “significant progress” has already been made.

In its annual progress report, the PCRRG estimates that the number of facilities which can recycle paper disposable cups is, over 4000. Large food chains such as Starbucks, Costa Coffee, the City of London and McDonald’s have boosted their collection points and have even started accepting these disposable cups from several other retailers. 

The issues of takeaway paper disposable cups which are layered in plastic lining for creating a more durable and waterproof product, cannot be recycled in usual paper streams and this was one of the most popular topics in 2016. Since then various producers and the hospitality industry has taken a number of approaches for increasing the sustainability of quality paper cups.

Even third-party operations like Simple Cups have improved its partnerships and networks over the last 1 year.  Recovered cups are also recycled at numerous facilities including ACE UK and James Cropper.

The PCRRG has even outlined how the organisation’s activity will switch from cooperation to funding and facilitating a number of projects. The agency will research how mainstream sorting of cups can be encouraged at UK materials recovery recycling points. It is believed that the group is considering various schemes and models to change the behaviour of consumers and find solutions which can be executed in different areas.

Neil Whitall, the chairman of Paper Cup Recovery and Recycling Group, said that over the past year, the PCRRG has brought together varied businesses, across the supply chain of paper cups. Many of these businesses are competitors, who are now working towards the common goal of boosting the recyclability of disposable cups.

Though the organisation has managed to get a number of companies on board, the chairman believes that it still has a long way to go for improving the recycling rates of paper disposable cups. Richard Hands, chief executive of ACE UK, said that the paper cup industry is going through similar recycling problems to the ones faced by the beverage carton industry a decade ago.

Creating A New Market 

As per estimates, more than 5000 coffee cups are discarded each minute, all over the UK. What’s more alarming is that only 1% of these cups are actually recovered and recycled. Since paper disposable cups have a plastic lining sealing on their interiors, these cannot be recycled easily.

It has been agreed that from the beginning of the coming year, every ACE UK recycling point will be accepting disposed cups for recycling. Cups collected from these points will be processed at the group’s recycling unit in Halifax.

While commenting on this agreement, Whitall said that generating bigger volumes of disposable cups for recycling will create a new market for the material making cups, which are more attractive to waste management companies. He believes that this will create the potential for more schemes which are set to be introduced for collecting paper cups from a much-varied range of locations like high streets and offices.

Efforts By Businesses 

The business community has widely supported these efforts to bring down waste from disposable cups through a range of pilot and in-store recycling projects. Starbucks offers several recycling initiatives and has even introduced its own in-store recycling unit. Costa Coffee has rolled out a pioneering recycling scheme to its stores all throughout the UK.

With such significant improvements in the paper cup recycling infrastructure, we can definitely expect significant progress in the cup recycling in the coming years. Time to act for a greener future!

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