In the Uk we use an estimated 2.5 billion take away coffee cup a year !!!
Think about that 2.5 Billion not Million yea Billion !!! thats a lot of cups man ..... Infact end to end they would reach around the world 5.5 times . it doesn't take much deep thinking to realise thats alot of resources needed to produce these cups and a hell of a lot of landfill space to bin them in ..
Wait Landfill nah man there paper yea??? they decompose or get recycled right ?
in short No they don't ! well they could be recycled if they are sent to the one of the few specialist recycling plants in the UK.... chances are they don't thousand and end up in Landfill.
The Problem is the Cardboard cup is lined with a "plastic sheet" to stop the card disintegrating under the heat of the coffee. Its this which make's the Paper cup not so easy to be recycled. Hence your standard recycling paper mill can't take them. Its actually the same sort of construction used for tetra packs such as orange juice cartons etc altho you can't go putting your coffee cup in with tetra pack recycling as they are generally not accepted.
Think about that 2.5 Billion not Million yea Billion !!! thats a lot of cups man ..... Infact end to end they would reach around the world 5.5 times . it doesn't take much deep thinking to realise thats alot of resources needed to produce these cups and a hell of a lot of landfill space to bin them in ..
Wait Landfill nah man there paper yea??? they decompose or get recycled right ?
in short No they don't ! well they could be recycled if they are sent to the one of the few specialist recycling plants in the UK.... chances are they don't thousand and end up in Landfill.
The Problem is the Cardboard cup is lined with a "plastic sheet" to stop the card disintegrating under the heat of the coffee. Its this which make's the Paper cup not so easy to be recycled. Hence your standard recycling paper mill can't take them. Its actually the same sort of construction used for tetra packs such as orange juice cartons etc altho you can't go putting your coffee cup in with tetra pack recycling as they are generally not accepted.
When i first opened Coffee n Skate and read about this it really shocked me ! i hadn't really thought about it.
80 percent of people think coffee cups are recycled ...... (internet info.)
Richard Fine, who founded biodegradable coffee cup manufacturer Biopak a decade ago, estimated up to 90 per cent of all disposable cups ended up in landfill (internet info)
As a consumer theres little you can do really ..... Get a keep cup altho this may not be practical , don't buy take away coffee or just carry on as normal
Coffee Shops however can offer an alternative theres a product called PLA it's a corn based Plastic which can be fully composted (3 weeks in commercial composting) (up to 100 years in landfill ) altho 12 weeks is the said standard. So grown and composted in a season as a rule
PLA Plastics are technical carbon neutral . In Reality they still take work to produce and need transporting etc etc so depending on situation single use PLA products are still unnecessarily wasteful but...
Lets be honest we need a balance in life and its not a perfect world and when i want a take out coffee a bit of work, some transport costs and compostable vs a bit of work some transport and non compostable .. well I'm all about the compostable.
When you next buy a Take out coffee ask the store if they use compostable packaging ? if they reply it gets recycled...... well 80 percent of people think it does !
check out
http://www.vegware.com
http://www.biopac.co.uk
http://www.londonbiopackaging.com
if you're a cafe looking for PLA
If your a Customer badger your local coffee shop .
