UK – Costa Coffee, the British coffee company has made a commitment to recycle the same volume of disposable cups as it puts onto the market, half a billion every year by 2020.
To achieve this, Costa will pay coffee cups collectors a subsidy to enhance their collection then send them to paper mills where they will be recycled.
Costa has partnered with waste collection companies Veolia, Biffa, Suez, Grundon and First Mile who would be paid a supplement of US$86.65 for every tonne of coffee cups collected.
The scheme will increase the number of coffee cups that it recycles from 14 million to 100 million this year alone, before eventually increasing to the 500 million per year goal in 2020.
“Costa is putting its money where its mouth is to find an immediate solution to increasing the volume of takeaway coffee cups being recycled in the UK.
It also dispels the myth that coffee cups can’t be recycled,” said Dominic Paul, managing director for Costa.
“Following today’s announcement up to 100 million cups will be recycled this year alone and if the nation’s other coffee chains sign up, there is no reason why all takeaway cups could not be recycled by as early as 2020.”
Costa assured customers that any of their cups they throw in the right bin will be recycled, calling on other cup retailers to follow suite.
“We want to help companies become plastic free and through our 25 Year Environment Plan we are putting in place the ambitions to encourage all of us to play our part in ending the scourge of plastic waste in our natural environment,” said the UK government’s environment minister Therese Coffey.
This is a landmark act leaning towards tackling plastic waste going into landfill and the oceans.
While UK recently announced 25-year plan for the environment to tackle plastic bottles, disposable coffee cups and micro-beads in cosmetics, EU announced a ‘European strategy for plastics in a circular economy’, a more substantial plan to make plastic packaging recyclable by 2030.
