Who’s involved? 
Cardiff Metropolitan University, partnering with Keep Wales Tidy, is leading the way in paper cup recycling with its ‘Cardiff Cup Project’. The project is part funded by PCRRG members and covers research, a public education campaign and the installation of coffee cup recycling bins in key locations across the campus.

Launched in January 2019, the project focuses on increasing recycling rates and boosting recycling on the go, reducing litter from single use cups in Cardiff., with all four on-campus cafés taking part in the trial.

A large, conspicuous cup-shaped bin was placed in the most popular café location and three deluxe style bins at the other locations. Eye-catching messaging aimed at the student demographic was distributed in the cafés and key locations on campus to encourage the behaviour of consumers to change, based on science nudge theories and psychology research.

​What’s the impact? 
Keep Wales Tidy has reported that the first results point to a huge increase in coffee cup recycling across campus, with more consumers using the dedicated recycling bins and a decrease in paper cups being deposited in general recycling bins.

“We are delighted that our trial has led to such positive results at Cardiff Metropolitan University. It is clear that staff and students want to do the right thing when it comes to caring for the environment. With ongoing support from the PCRRG for Phase 2, we can help ensure coffee cup recycling is made as easy as possible for everyone at the university.”
Hanna Jones, Keep Wales Tidy 

Where next? 
As a result of the successful trial results, the project moved to Phase 2 in September 2019, with an increased number of bins placed around campus, in a bid to encourage a culture of coffee cup recycling not just in the café.

Who's involved?​
In April 2019 Starbucks and environmental charity Hubbub launched The Cup Fund, the UK’s largest grant fund to bolster and scale paper cup recycling. The Cup Fund is designed to encourage innovation to identify the ‘next generation’ fibre cup through the NextGen Cup Challenge, which has the potential to turn the 250 billion fibre to-go cups used annually from waste into a valuable material in the recycling system. The 12 winners were announced in September 2019. Funded by the Starbucks 5p cup charge, The Cup Fund will boost recycling infrastructure in 70+ locations around the UK, with combined annual footfall of 220 million, enabling paper cup collection in areas where there may not have been any drop off points before.

​What's the impact?
​The Cup Fund is expected to increase recycling by 35 million paper cups per year, equating to 420 tonnes of waste diverted from landfill annually. All cups collected by the projects will be manufactured locally into new products.

Where next?
​All projects supported by The Cup Fund will be underway in 2020, as Starbucks and Hubbub continue their partnership to recycle an estimated 35 million cups over the course of 12 months.

Who's involved?​
​In 2019, following a number of successful trials, Pret A Manger rolled out paper cup
recycling across its UK estate. Customers can now recycle coffee cups from any brand
as well as Pret’s soup pots, porridge and breakfast pots. Pret has maintained the
focus on encouraging reusables through an industry leading discount and, since
this was doubled in January 2018, Pret customers have saved over 10 million
paper cups. However, the business feels that there is also a need for a recycling
solution. The key challenges to overcome have been obtaining a clean recycling
stream from customers and transporting that stream efficiently to recycling
mills. The engagement of Pret’s team members has been critical in helping
change consumer behaviour in order to reduce contamination levels and increase
recycling. Pret has tackled the second challenge through backhauling its
own logistics network and building relationships with waste collectors throughout
the UK.

What's the impact?
​Paper cup recycling is now taking place at over 400 Pret A Manger stores across
the UK and is still growing.

Who's involved?​
As the UK’s largest coffee shop brand, Costa Coffee is continuously working to drive change in the industry to ensure that more takeaway cups are disposed of and recycled, both inside and outside of its stores.

What's the impact?
​​Costa Coffee has introduced a game-changing scheme to pay waste collectors for every tonne of cups collected, helping to fund the right infrastructure and processes to collect and recycle cups, meaning fewer end up in landfill. The National Cup Recycling Scheme, created by Costa Coffee and Valpak, is funded by eight major retailers.
Costa Coffee is seeing an increase in the number of places people can recycle their takeaway cups, including offices, shopping centres, universities, transport hubs and local councils.

Who's involved?​
Partnering with Heathrow Airport and immersive storytelling company
Storyfutures, Costa Coffee helped Heathrow develop a fun and innovative
immersive experience for passengers in an aim to drive paper cup recycling
and minimise cross-contamination in recycling bins.
​
The Cupsy project focused on ‘Cupsy’, an animated character that lived on screens
above new cup recycling bins. Using facial and object recognition technologies,
Cupsy could identify a passenger holding a paper cup and inform them on how
and where to dispose of it correctly. It would even congratulate them and
celebrate onscreen if the cup was disposed of properly.
The project saw a fantastic upturn in the recycling rates of paper cups: an increase
of 130% with more than 6,000 cups being recycled over six weeks. 74% of
passengers found the experience memorable and helped behaviour change. Children
in particular were drawn to the Cupsy character and encouraged their parents
to engage.

“Costa Coffee continues to drive industry change, helping to increase consumer access to cup recycling facilities whilst increasing the number of paper cups being recycled. The industry still faces many barriers to increasing recycling rates at speed and more work is needed to improve the waste infrastructure, innovate the material used in packaging and ultimately reduce and remove unnecessary single-use packaging where possible.”
“The collaborative work of the PCRRG, allowing for cross-brand and industry collaboration, is helping to make changes, not only for consumers but also for the environment and recycling rates.”

Who's involved?​
In order to support the cup recycling infrastructure within the UK, McDonald’s has installed collection units in over 90% of UK restaurants allowing customers to separate paper cups and also, from 2019, paper straws, for recycling. Through the collaboration with other PCRRG members, any paper cups can be disposed of in McDonald’s recycling units, and in return, other retailers accept McDonald’s paper cups. This agreement was made between Costa, Pret, Caffè Nero, Greggs and McDonald’s who have agreed to use the same paper cup icon, displayed on window stickers in their respective participating outlets to provide a consistent message to consumers. This group of retailers has worked with Valpak to set up an incentive scheme for waste companies to collect cups separately from other materials, to allow for high quality recycling with mills such as James Cropper or specialist recyclers such as AShortWalk, who have been recycling the paper cups into new reusable cups. McDonald’s has also worked with another PCRRG member, DS Smith, to test the recyclability of an improved cold drink cup which is currently under development; the research was very positive, and the cups were easily recycled at the mill.

​What's the impact?
Cups collected in McDonald’s restaurants are backhauled by delivery partner, Martin Brower, to their distribution centres then sent for onward processing. A ‘cup story’ poster was sent to all restaurants to engage crew on the cup recycling journey, depicting what happens to cups and paper straws collected for recycling.

“The additional engagement with McDonald’s crew and customers, and also with consumers on a wider level through the PCRRG partners, has helped increase cup recycling with over 20x more cups being collected from 2017 to 2019.”
​
Helen McFarlane, Restaurant Sustainability, McDonald’s UK & Ireland Supply Chain

Where next?
The PCRRG continues to engage with the major retailers to drive coffee cup recycling. As illustrated by the DS Smith Drop Box scheme, the next phase is to engage with the independent sector and ensure that café and coffee shop operators have the same opportunities to facilitate recycling as the big brand retailers.
​

​The Paper Cup Recovery and Recycling Group (PCRRG) has announced that it is supporting the first Scottish initiative to stop single-use cups going to landfill or ending up as litter.
Launched this week in Glasgow, the Cup Movement, has been developed by environmental charity Keep Scotland Beautiful in response to growing public concern about the environmental impact of single-use items. It will be the largest, sustained single-use cup collection and behaviour change initiative of its kind in Scotland and, if successful, the model could be rolled out across many more cities in the UK.
With an estimated 95 million single-use cups being used in the Greater Glasgow area every year, the pioneering project will tackle this issue head on by transforming recycling infrastructure and encouraging people to adopt more sustainable behaviours.
Research has shown that 48% of Glasgow’s drinks waste currently consists of single-use cups, so the Cup Movement will aim to stop single-use cups ending up as litter, by transforming recycling infrastructure, working with partners to install convenient recycling and cup collection points across the city and targeting the city’s thousands of regular cup users to switch to reusable containers.
By working with retailers of all sizes and types across the city, the initiative will bring together the all stakeholders to engage with the public to:
●      Educate, inspire and empower people to change their littering, recycling and reuse behaviours
●      Gather robust evidence to inform policy and create a model of best practice that can be replicated in other major cities
●      Contribute to Scottish Government circular economy ambitions

Coffee cup recycling rates have increased from an estimated 1:400 to 1:25 in just two years and will increase to 1:12 in 2019, according to a Report published today (29th October) by the Paper Cup Recovery and Recycling Group (PCRRG).  
Through its collaborative programme of workshops and seminars, the PCRRG has facilitated a step change in paper cup recycling that sees it confident of meeting its 2016 Manifesto Goal that ‘by 2020 the greater majority of the UK population will have access to information, schemes and facilities that enable used paper cups to be sustainably recovered and recycled.’
In fact, the Report shows that capacity exists now to recycle all the papers cups used in the UK.  
In the past 12 months the work of the PCRRG and its members have led to the following progress:

• There are now more than 4,500 paper cup recycling points in the UK for consumers to return cups via bring banks and in-store take back schemes;
• 115 local authorities now collect paper cups with paper cartons, with more coming on stream all the time;
• 21 waste collectors are now actively participating in a national recycling scheme to increase recycling of paper cups and transport them to their reprocessing end markets, up from two last year;
• Five reprocessors are accepting paper cups including ACE UK, DS Smith, James Cropper and Veolia;
• At least nine  councils have started to include paper cups in kerbside collection schemes for householders, and that number is growing through the ACE UK programme*

Neil Whittall, Chairman of the PCRRG said: “The industry can be justly proud of the progress it has made so far but of course we know that there is more work to do. Consumers are rightly demanding change and Government is keen to make that happen. However we believe that by working together we are demonstrating that industry can and will make change in a way that benefits the circular economy, protects UK manufacturing and engineering jobs and does not threaten the success of the high street.   As a result of our actions and our support for PRN reform,  we don’t believe that burdening the consumer with more cost in the form of a cup tax or charge is needed.”
Mark Pawsey, Chairman of the All Party Parliament Group on Packaging, said: “The figures speak for themselves, but what impresses me is how this industry has taken a serious challenge and pulled together to effect change that is workable for all stakeholders.  The desire to make change has driven people to set aside their competitive differences in order to achieve something that is wanted by consumers, desired by Government and is right for the industry.   I am confident the PCRRG will meet and exceed its Manifesto goal and its work is a credit to the industry and an example to other sectors.”
 
Ends                                                                                                                               29 October 2018
 
* the ACE UK paper cup collection scheme was launched in earlier 2018 by 14 organisations in collaboration with ACE UK (the Alliance for Beverage cartons and the Environment) to accelerate the recycling of PE lined paper cups. Cups are now accepted at more than 430 ACE bring banks in 115 local authorities and the scheme is rapidly expanding.
 
Note to Editors

• The PCRRG Year 2 Report can be downloaded here; pcrrg_report_year_two_report.pdf
• Neil Whittall, Chairman of the PCRRG and Adrian Pratt, Vice Chairman of the PCRRG are available for comment - see contact details below
• It is widely quoted that paper cups can’t be recycled in the UK.  This is incorrect and is evidenced by the progress detailed in the Report
• PCRRG members include representatives from paper board manufacturers, paper cup manufacturers, distributors, retail brands recycling and reprocessing companies, local authorities and NGO bodies.

 
 
Issued on behalf of the PCRRG by Leapfrog PR. Editorial contacts is Felicity Read on 01242 282000 felicity@Leapfrogpr.com  mobile 07887 608353

​The PCRRG and its members have helped to boost the number of cup collections points available across the UK. Notable examples are the Costa Coffee in store collection systems, the ACE Bring Bank Network, and more local community initiatives like that in Gosport. 
Since the Start of 2018 the ACE Bring Bank Network has accepted paper cups along with the beverage cartons. There are nearly 400 of these Bring Banks around the UK that can be found in 28% of local authorities. Several local VIP's have been visiting this new infrastructure to see how it can benefit the local communities alongside existing waste and recycling services. 
​Here are a few of the photos from VIP visits to the growing network of cup recycling points. 

Organisations from across the paper cup supply chain have signed an agreement with the Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE UK) to accelerate UK recycling of PE lined paper cups. The cross-industry collaboration will work towards delivering a long-term, nationwide paper cup recycling solution which complements and builds on the recycling activities achieved so far by the paper cup industry.

​Bring banks will accept cups along with cartons.

• From 1st January 2018 all ACE UK bring banks will accept paper cups for recycling, delivering an additional 382 recycling points located in 97 local authorities across the UK. With a further 33 recycling points across an additional eight local authorities scheduled during the next phase.
• Cups from these recycling points will be processed at ACE UK’s recycling facility in Halifax.
• Drawing on its experience and existing relationships with local authorities, waste management organisations and recycling bodies, ACE UK will work to include cups in local authority kerbside collections. Currently 66% of local authorities collect beverage cartons at kerbside, in addition to those which collect through bring banks, and it is hoped to achieve similar levels of coverage for cups.

​Neil Whittall; “This agreement with ACE UK represents a significant advance in UK recycling infrastructure for paper cups. It will also help us accelerate progress towards the PCRRG’s objective of ensuring the majority of the UK population have access to information, schemes and facilities to allow them to recycle their paper cup, as set out in our Paper Cup Manifesto.”

Editorial contacts are Felicity Read on 01242 282000 felicity@Leapfrogpr.com or: Kirsten Doddy +447766 734314 on Kirsten.doddy@anthesisgroup.com.

Stora Enso is a leading provider of renewable solutions in packaging, biomaterials, wooden constructions and paper on global markets. Their customers include publishers, retailers, brand owners, print and board producers, printing houses, merchants, converters, joineries and construction companies.

Their aim is to replace fossil based materials by innovating and developing new products and services based on wood and other renewable materials. They believe that everything made with fossil fuels today can be made from a tree tomorrow and their focus is on fibre-based packaging, plantation-based pulp, innovation in biomaterials, and sustainable building solutions.
In terms of paper cup recycling, Stora Enso sponsored the 2017 Nordic Ski Championships in Lahti, Finland. In doing so, they collaborated with the event organisers and provided specific bins to collect the hundreds of thousands of paper cups and plates from the event. The cups from the event were made from sustainably sourced materials by packaging specialist Huhtamaki. After the event, the cups were collected, bailed and sent to a recycling plant where the paper fibres were separated from the plastic and remade into paper and cardboard boxes.

The press release for this event can be seen here and a video of the recycling process created by Stora Enso can be seen below.
​
Editorial contacts are Felicity Read on 01242 282000 felicity@Leapfrogpr.com or: Kirsten Doddy +44 (0) 7766 734314 on Kirsten.doddy@anthesisgroup.com.

Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB) is an environmental charity committed to making Scotland clean, green and sustainable. They achieve this by tackling a wide range of environmental issues, including reducing the amount of litter on the streets to cutting carbon emissions. They draw together government, local authorities, businesses, community groups and individuals in this challenge.

‘Clean Up Scotland’ is Keep Scotland Beautiful’s national campaign to help build community pride and to make Scotland the cleanest country in Europe by 2020.   The campaign supports people to clean up litter and drive behaviour change.

One of the most visible and most prevalent litter items are single use drinks containers, which are widely used by fast food establishments and coffee shops within the UK.  Along with other litter types, Keep Scotland Beautiful is working on a variety of initiatives to raise awareness of, and tackle the littering of single use cups and drinks containers.

These include initiatives which will:

• bring focus to our throw away culture,
• challenge consumer behaviour,
• challenge producer and retailer roles and responsibilities,
• engage with the current debate surrounding issues of disposable packaging,
• lead the way in trailing innovative and sustainable solutions to promote informed consumer behaviour.

These initiatives will be completed in partnership with other single use cup related companies and organisations. These partnerships include:

Simply Cups / Recoup
This first initiative took place on the 24th/25th October 2017 at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), Glasgow.  An exhibition, called #SipDontTip, highlighted the issue of litter and waste associated with single use beverage containers. The exhibit included a huge sculpture made entirely of coffee cups, meant to highlight the 208 million used every year in Scotland. The event also involved exhibits made by school pupils who engaged with the topic. Simply Cups and RECOUP provided installations to showcase the recycling journey of both single use cups and plastic bottles.

Simply Cups
This project, working with Glasgow City Council, will trial a coffee cup recycling collection service from a range of business premises in Glasgow’s ‘Golden Z’, in the city centre. It will be similar to that trialled by Simply Cups and Hubbub in London (Square Mile Challenge). This project is planned for early 2018.
​
RECOUP
A joint proposal, aiming to promote plastic packaging recycling, particularly focused on single use beverage containers, is being developed for Spring 2018.  An ambitious two-year project, it will incorporate public engagement and empowerment through citizen science, a travelling plastic sculpture and education opportunities for students and teachers.
 
Paper Cup Recycling & Recovery Group (PCRRG)
This audit will help to develop a more comprehensive set of data for single use cups that are in litter bins around Glasgow. By intensively assessing the cups within bins in Glasgow city centre, Keep Scotland Beautiful has captured data on materials, brands and trends.  A report is due for completion in early 2018.

Editorial contacts are Felicity Read on 01242 282000 felicity@Leapfrogpr.com or: Kirsten Doddy +44 (0) 7766 734314 on Kirsten.doddy@anthesisgroup.com.