UK-based coffee chain Costa Coffee has pledged to recycle the same volume of disposable cups as it puts onto the market, the equivalent of half a billion coffee cups per year by 2020.
Costa says that it will achieve this by paying waste collecters a subsidy to collect coffee cups and send them to paper mills capable of recycling takeaway coffee cups.
UK waste collection companies Veolia, Biffa, Suez, Grundon and First Mile have partnered with Costa, who will pay waste collectors a supplement of £70 for every tonne of coffee cups collected.
Costa claims that the scheme will increase the number of coffee cups that it recycles from 14 million to 100 million this year alone, before eventually increasing to the 500 million per year goal in 2020.
Dominic Paul, managing director for Costa said: “Costa is putting its money where its mouth is to find an immediate solution to increasing the volume of takeaway coffee cups being recycled in the UK. It also dispels the myth that coffee cups can’t be recycled!
“Following today’s announcement up to 100 million cups will be recycled this year alone and if the nation’s other coffee chains sign up, there is no reason why all takeaway cups could not be recycled by as early as 2020.
“At Costa we want to guarantee our customers that if they throw their cup into the right recycling bin it will get recycled, and today’s announcement is a major step towards that happening.
“We have set our own target to recycle the same volume of takeaway cups we use every year and call on other cup retailers to join and help to build a dynamic market for takeaway coffee cup recycling.”
The UK government’s environment minister Thérèse Coffey added: “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.”
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