Green your cup
Due to the Western World’s insatiable desire of coffee – and the culture of ‘coffee to go’ – takeaway coffee cups apparently are responsible for around 25,000 tonnes of waste per year, waste that cannot conventionally be fully recycled.
However, as a number of media outlets have reported, a British business man has become the first person to devise a fully green cup.
“People will be shocked to find out that the paper cups they use rarely get recycled,” the creator Martin Myerscough said.
The problem with current cups is the presence of a necessary thin coating of polythene, a plastic film which keeps the cup from absorbing liquid, saturating and collapsing. But this is attached so tightly that recycling plants need specialist facilities in order to separate the two layers, equipment which isn’t readily available.
And because they cannot be processed alongside other cardboard and paper based materials, coffee cups tend to get sent straight to landfill sites when otherwise they could full be repurposed.
The quantity of cups that end up in landfill is estimated to be in the region of 2.5 billion containers, enough to fill up London’s Royal Albert Hall.
Consumer group Which? has criticised the used of these mixed material cups and has urged manufacturers to be more environmentally responsible.
So, how do Mr. Myerscough’s cups pass the current recycling guidelines?
Well, these disposable cups are created through a unique process which allows this pesky plastic film to be easily separated from the paper, allowing it to be the first ever 100% recyclable takeaway cup.
The Rainforest Alliance have spoken out in praise of the ingenious invention, hailing it as a “major innovation in the beverage industry.”
“Green Your Cup takes a single use waste product that too often ends up in landfill and turns it into a resource that can be recycled and used again,” said a spokesman for the eco-group.