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.
​