Paper Cup Recycling Landscape

Executive summary:

• Paper cup recycling challenges and solutions:
  • challenges: technological limitations, lack of disposal infrastructure, limited consumer awareness
  • solutions: materials, technologies, collection systems, education, regulations, stakeholders’ collaboration.
• Ubuntoo proposed a business model to help the client develop its own program for paper cup recycling
• The model mapped:
  • paper cup recycling solutions
  • existing recycling programs worldwide
  • case studies
  • best practices for the establishment of recycling programs.

Landscape assessment:

Once widely viewed as unrecyclable, paper cups have been a focal point of many collaborative efforts in the recycling industry. However, paper cup recycling is still facing strong limitations due to the recyclability of common cups, lack of widespread disposal and recycling infrastructure, and of consumer awareness. Cup manufacturers, recovery facilities, paper mills and other stakeholders should work together to give commercial value to the materials and ensure viable recovery pathways to bring paper cup recycling into the mainstream.

For a leading provider of paper-based packaging worldwide, Ubuntoo landscaped the main paper cup recycling programs worldwide and deep dove into their value chain, with a focus on disposal, waste management and reprocessing of cups. The final aim of the project is to develop a paper cup recycling scheme in the client’s target market. The landscape analyzes and assesses the most effective approaches to creating recycling programs for paper cups by examining seven leading paper cup recycling initiatives from around the world. Ubuntoo also supported the client in developing the operational model that will build the fundamentals of its own paper cup recycling scheme.

The paper cup recyling schemes included in the research are:

• National cup recycling scheme (UK)
• RecycleMe (UK and Australia/New Zealand)
• Simply Cups (UK and Australia)
• The Cup Collective (Belgium and Netherlands)
• Ciclobom (Brazil)