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.

If your a Customer badger your local coffee shop .