AN initiative aiming to raise awareness and provide guidance on the single-use coffee cup waste problem has been launched in the Greater Glasgow area.
DS Smith and Keep Scotland Beautiful have teamed up to introduce the Cup Movement, hoping to tackle the growing issue surrounding the recycling of single-use cups.
The objective of the initiative is to ensure a “strong and immediate positive impact” is made on coffee cup recycling, as well as other waste measures.
Last year alone, Scotland used an estimated 500 million single-use coffee cups, with Greater Glasgow contributing around 95m alone.
Cup recycling rates are placed at around only 4%, meaning over 91m of the city’s cups either end up in landfill or being burnt every year ¬– or are discarded as litter on streets.
DS Smith, a packaging company, will be working closely with Cup Movement to roll out its successful Coffee Cup Drop Box recycling service.
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The box is a “uniquely designed, fully recyclable cardboard bin that can collect up to 700 cups”. A nationwide collection service is run alongside it, ensuring that full boxes can easily be collected and recycled.
Tom Campbell-White, European strategic development director for DS Smith, said: “We are proud to be supporting both Keep Scotland Beautiful and their efforts to increase coffee cup recycling in Scotland, beginning with Glasgow.
“Since announcing in 2018 that we had the potential to recycle up to 2.5 billion cups at our paper recycling mill, we have been working with stakeholders to work out how to collect more cups for recycling.
“The introduction of our Coffee Cup Drop Box was a significant development in improving coffee cup collection infrastructure, and to be working with Keep Scotland Beautiful to target the 500 million cups in Scotland is really exciting for us.”
Catherine Gee, operations director for Keep Scotland Beautiful, commented: “Cup Movement aims to work across all sectors to find solutions for reducing the amount of waste associated with single-use cups.
“We are delighted to have the support of DS Smith and to include the Coffee Cup Drop Box in our suite of interventions.
“Its unique design is well-suited for overcoming some of the barriers to cup recycling, particularly for SMEs, and we are excited to be rolling it out as part of our city-wide initiative in Glasgow.”
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