A new initiative has been announced, offering a £45,000 fund to support paper cup recycling projects across the UK. The scheme, backed by major high street brands including Costa Coffee, McDonald’s, Pret a Manger, Caffè Nero, Lavazza Professional, Greggs and Burger King, aims to encourage innovative approaches to tackling the country’s single-use cup problem.
On the surface, this may look like a positive step, but the scale of the problem tells a different story.
- The average disposable coffee cup weighs just 10 grams, but with 3.2 billion used annually in the UK, that adds up to around 32,000 tonnes of waste every year.
- At a disposal cost of £160 per tonne, that’s a bill of £5.12 million annually for the UK economy – before even factoring in the costs of litter bin emptying and street cleaning.
So how successful has recycling been so far? The National Cup Recycling Scheme (NCRS) estimates that 233 million cups have been recycled into new products since its launch. That’s around 2,330 tonnes – equating to just 7% of the cups disposed. And there’s still little clarity about where this is happening, or at which facilities these cups are being successfully turned into new products.
Meanwhile, the £45,000 fund offered by industry players represents less than 1% of the actual disposal cost to local councils and taxpayers. While brands continue to push the financial burden onto the public purse, they position their contribution as a meaningful step towards sustainability.
The real solution? Reuse beats recycling every time. Taking a reusable mug is the only genuine way to cut down on the staggering volume of waste created by single-use cups. Until systemic change is made, small funding pots like this will do little more than scratch the surface of the problem.