The UK's largest coffee retailer, Costa Coffee, has committed to recycling half a billion coffee cups a year by 2020 in a landmark act to tackle plastic waste.
The pledge, which amounts to recycling the same volume of cups it puts onto the market, would take a significant chunk out of the 2.5 billion takeaway cups thrown away across the country every year.
Despite often being marked as recyclable, the vast majority of paper coffee cups end up on landfill or being incinerated due to the plastic lining used to make them waterproof.
By paying waste collectors to take coffee cups to specialist facilities, Costa hopes to massively increase the rate at which cups are recycled.
Ultimately, all a customer will need to do to ensure their cup avoids landfill is throw it into a standard recycling bin.
The move is the most ambitious so far by a major coffee chain since the start of The Independent’s Cut the Cup Waste campaign.
Launched following the Environmental Audit Committee’s report recommending ministers take drastic action to tackle coffee cup waste, the campaign has pushed for action from governments and businesses and promoted potential solutions.
“The Independent’s campaign has highlighted the importance of finding a solution to this issue,” Costa managing director Dominic Paul told The Independent.
Starbucks has pledged ￡7m to develop a “fully recyclable cup” following pressure from campaigners, while Waitrose has pledged to phase out disposable coffee cups from its stores by autumn.
The company has entered into a partnership with five national waste collectors – Veolia, Biffa, Suez, Grundon and First Mile – that between them cover public spaces across the UK including hospitals, universities and transport hubs.
The coffee giant is also working with paper mills to ensure their products are recycled effectively. James Cropper, for example, has plans to “upcycle” 500 million cups a year to create plastic-free packaging.
By building more partnerships with waste contractors in every region, Costa intends to hit its half a billion mark within two years.
With one report predicting the number of takeaway drink cups thrown away in the UK is set to rise by a third by 2030, and the government recently failing to back a “l(fā)atte levy” to discourage cup use, it falls to businesses to act on the huge amount of waste from their products.
Commenting on the announcement Environment Minister Therese Coffey, said: “Congratulations Costa on taking this significant step to help coffee lovers do the right thing and increase recycling. We all have a responsibility to our environment and this is a significant step by a British business which should dramatically increase the number of disposable coffee cups we recycle in this country.
“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.”
