Industry collaboration 

The National Cup Recycling Scheme sees major retailers working together to create a system for collecting and recycling hot and cold paper cups – this includes everything from coffee cups to milkshake cups.

Launched in April 2018, the National Cup Recycling Scheme was setup by Costa Coffee and is now co-funded by seven other major brands including McDonald's, Caffè Nero, Pret A Manger, Greggs, Burger King, Pure and Lavazza Professional.

Making the collection of cups commercially attractive

In the UK, we now have enough recycling facilities accepting paper cups to recycle every paper cup on the market (over 2.5 billion cups). The problem is managing how we collect the paper cups when, as an on-the-go item, they end up in a whole host of places such as train stations, universities, offices and domestic bins.

The National Cup Recycling Scheme financially incentivises waste collectors to collect paper cups, offering them an additional £70 per tonne of cups. This is on-top of the commercial fee they receive from the recycling facility for the material.

This Scheme aims to make the collection of cups commercially attractive for waste collectors to include as part of their recycling offering to customers.

Mandatory Cup Takeback Legislation