The Environmental Audit Committee at the House of Commons in the UK has launched an inquiry into the damaging being done to the environment by disposable drinks packaging, focusing on the impact of coffee cups and plastic bottles. The inquiry will look at what actions are being undertaken by industry and UK government to reduce waste generated by coffee cups and plastic bottles, and investigate possible solutions.
Mary Creagh MP said: “Our throwaway society has given us a tide of litter on our beaches, dead seabirds and fish, and plastic in our food. We all enjoy a take away coffee or tea, but the cups they are served in are particularly difficult to recycle because they combine plastic coating and cardboard. Our inquiry will be taking a serious look at solutions like the use of different materials, behaviour change, better recycling and bottle deposit return schemes.”
Coffee cups and plastic bottles are particularly problematic. Only around half of the 35 million plastic bottles sold in Britain every day are currently collected for recycling. And every day around 7 million cardboard coffee cups are thrown away, but only 1 in 400 are recycled, leaving over 6.98m going to landfill or ending up in the environment.
To make coffee cups waterproof the card must be fused with polyethylene, a material that cannot be separated out again in standard UK recycling mills. This coating makes both composting and recycling of paper cups uncommon. There are only two sites in the UK that have the capacity to separate the plastic film from the paper, allowing recovery and recycling into new paper products.
Successive governments have put regulations in place to reduce waste and to increase recycling. Similarly, the industry has been taking voluntary action to try to increase their recycling rates and exploring recyclable alternatives to coffee cups, with the creation of stakeholder groups such as the Paper Cup Recovery and Recycling Group.
The inquiry is open and invites submissions on plastic bottles and coffee cups and how the committee can help increase recycling and reduce the amount of disposable packaging ending up in landfill or the environment.
For more information see the forthcoming May 2017 issue of Coffee & Cocoa International.
