Costa Coffee to pay £70 a tonne for recycling of coffee cups

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Major coffee chain Costa is to pay waste management companies a guaranteed £70 per tonne to collect coffee cups for recycling.

The company plans to recycle 500 million coffee cups per year by 2020, which is equivalent to the amount it sells each year. It will then pay companies to collect the same amount, even if they are cups from rival brands.

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Three mills owned by James Cropper, ACE UK and DS Smith will take the cups to be recycled. This means that in 2018 coffee cup recycling will increase from 14 million cups per year to 100 million.

Veolia, Suez, Biffa, Grundon and First Mile will be involved in collecting the cups. They will be given a £70 supplement from Costa for each tonne collected and sorted, plus approximately another £50 market value.

Costa managing director Dominic Paul 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.”

 

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