Paper Cup Recovery and Recycling Group
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Case STUDIES


driving paper cup recycling: in cities

15/9/2020

 

cup movement in glasgow​

Who's involved?
Cup Movement in Glasgow is an ambitious city-wide initiative to reduce the impact of single use cups in Scotland by working with those who sell, buy and use them to find solutions for reuse, recycling and litter reduction.
The campaign was launched in January 2019 by Keep Scotland Beautiful and has received backing from the Scottish Government, Glasgow City Council, transport providers including ScotRail and Glasgow Airport to major employers such as Scottish Power, Jacobs and MacRoberts, shopping centres, supply chain companies and entertainment organisations.
Cup Movement is working with Glasgow city council and five of the city’s biggest coffee chains – Costa Coffee, McDonald’s, Greggs, Pret and Starbucks (who are all PCRRG members) – to increase awareness of in-store recycling facilities, encouraging consumers to recycle their cups wherever possible.
In-store messaging is used alongside posters in the city centre and stickers on recycling and waste bins. Working with recycling partners Simply Cups and Scotwaste, Keep Scotland Beautiful has established the first dedicated cup collection and recycling service in Scotland, the first of many steps in tacking the recycling of the 500 million paper cups used in Scotland every year. 
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What's the impact?
Keep Scotland Beautiful estimates that the campaign has already reached around 10 million paper cup users and saved more than 300,000 used coffee cups from going to landfill. The Scottish Government is to work with Cup Movement to fully assess the progress of the initiative, hoping to translate the lessons to be learnt from Glasgow right across Scotland.
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“The support of the PCRRG has been critical in the success of this pioneering city-wide initiative. Cup Movement’s engaging messaging on-street and in-store, combined with the availability of recycling points, is key to reducing cup waste at a city level.”
Catherine Gee, Operations Director, Keep Scotland Beautiful 

​Where next?
In recent months many schemes have been rolled out in public locations such as Leeds, Edinburgh, Swansea, Nottingham, Westminster City Council, Gatwick Airport, Shrewsbury, Bristol, London (Brixton, Camden, Southbank, Grosvenor estate and three London universities), Glasgow, Gloucester Services, Teebay Services, Cumbria, York, Northampton and Oxford City Council.
The PCRRG is working closely with all of the organisations involved to understand how to make the programme successful throughout the country and to see whether there are any lessons to be learned for the wider recycling sector. 
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​How to get involved: If you are a retailer, FM provider or in charge of a large site such as a city centre, university or transport hub, there are a number of organisations that can help you get started with coffee cup recycling. Suggestions can be found at www.cuprecyclingscheme.co.uk or contact the PCRRG who will happily signpost you: www.prcrrg.uk 

driving paper cup recycling: education

3/9/2020

 

cardiff METROPOLITAN university

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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.
How to get involved:  If you are a retailer, FM provider or in charge of a large site such as a city centre, university or transport hub, there are a number of organisations that can help you get started with coffee cup recycling. Suggestions can be found at www.cuprecyclingscheme.co.uk or contact the PCRRG who will happily signpost you: www.prcrrg.uk 

DELIVERING CUP RECYCLING: CONSUMERS ON THE GO

2/9/2020

 

Starbucks cup fund

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.

For Cups Sake: 100 new bins to help Bristol recycle four million cups

​Cup Fund winner Bristol Waste Company is working with Hubbub and James Cropper to recycle paper cups in Bristol. The campaign will see 100 paper cup recycling bins rolled out across the city with the aim of recycling up to four million paper cups in the first year.

“Every paper cup popped in one of the cup bins will get a second life as high-quality paper, packaging and stationery products and support us on our mission to help Bristol waste nothing. We are delighted to have received Cup Fund funding to get this project off the ground.”

Gwen Frost, Head of Sustainability & Innovation at Bristol Waste

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​pret a Manger

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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.


costa coffee

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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.



heathrow airport & costa coffee

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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.”



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MCdonald's uk

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.
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