Recyclable Coffee Cups

Coffee cups are the tip of an iceberg of issues around packaging recycling and with recyclable coffee cups Melbourne as well, there has been some confusion often where the cardboard sleeve is recyclable and may have a recyclable symbol on it, and people interpret that then as the whole cup being recyclable. There probably is some work to do on labelling. Unrecycled plastic takes hundreds of years to break down, meaning lots of it ends up impacting the natural environment. In order to ensure that disposable cups conform to health and safety requirements, they are made with paper fiber and a 5 percent polyethylene lining which is bonded together under a high heat. This use of mixed material ensures the strength and safety of the cups, but it renders the cups difficult to recycle. Although both the paper and plastic components of disposable cups are recyclable, the materials need to be separated out, which is a more complicated process than traditional paper is recycling. It is because there is a very tightly bonded polyethylene liner that prevents the cup from basically soaking up the contents of the liquid. Because that is tightly bonded it is quite challenging to remove it in a normal paper mill process, is my understanding. For that reason, it can either contaminate the paper stream or it can slow the paper stream down in terms of having to operate a slower process to recover that polyethylene liner. Most recyclable coffee cups Melbourne have a plastic coating that must be separated from paper before recycling, which ordinary paper recycling systems are not set up to do. In some cases, coffee chains are making recycling more difficult for councils because the coffee cup materials are getting mixed up with the paper that many householders have taken time and trouble over collecting, resulting in more waste going to landfill.

Another significant barrier to the widespread of recyclable coffee cups is the challenges of recycling packaging that has come into contact with food or drink. Consumers have been led to believe that laminated cups are widely recyclable and widely recycled through conventional systems when in fact, relatively very few pass into a processor and even fewer are properly processed to extract the full value of the resources they contain. There’s a lot of reusable cups to be found on the market, some are made of glass, stainless steel, plastic and then you have bamboo which is considered to be the best and most environment friendly option available, because not only is the cup reusable, it is also biodegradable. Looks almost exactly the same as a normal disposable cup, but there's a big difference. This one can be used over and over again and even if something happens to it and you have to throw it away, don't worry too much. The cup is made of bamboo, which means it will return to nature within a year, if composted. Not every coffee shop is going to switch to sustainable products overnight, and neither are the manufacturers. As people begin to refuse single use cups with their coffee, proprietors will adapt and adopt the same ideals their patrons display. In the end the power lies with you to make a difference.

Takeaway Coffee Cups – Recycling is Key

Currently, it had been estimated that the number of Sydney takeaway coffee cups that are being disposed of every year amounts to over half a trillion, which is about seventy cups for every person on the planet. Unfortunately, more than 95% of these go directly to landfills.

Another unfortunate fact is that the whole process is also not sustainable from the simple fact that most of these paper cups are made straight out of virgin materials coming from trees.

Takeaway

At the outset, these paper cups are commonly named takeaway cups and they were originally designed to be that way – to be taken away. Later, when we finish consuming our beverage (coffee, mostly (we disposed of the cups in the usual throwaway manner, like any trash.

These days, most of them usually end up in ever-growing landfills in most countries where they are used. Another wrong disposal method is burning them (and throwing more carbon into the air). Some conscientious users throw them into compostable bins.

The unfortunate part is simply that most people are unaware of all these, and that there are so few recycling companies that recycle these cups into another set of useful paper materials.

Plastic coating

The biggest reason these paper cups can’t be recycled is the fact that they are designed that way at the outset of their manufacture. Today, a typical paper cup is actually coated with about 5% plastic.

The presence of plastic is necessary because the material can hold the liquid in the cup without leaking all over the place. The first paper cups suffer such things as liquid leakage, seepage of liquid into the paper materials and some other minor drinking disasters.

These and other things that undermined the reason for the use of paper material caused the development of so-called design renovations. The use of plastic was originally thought of as brilliant. The coatings and other innovations (rounded rims, etc) came in later.

Wax

Not all paper cups are coated in plastic, however. Less frequently, some manufacturers opted to coat them with wax. They actually work just like the plastic coatings.

First, the coating holds the liquid in without spilling and without the seepage factor that undermines the paper material. (It becomes soggy and unusable.) This usually happens if the cold contents develops some condensation outside of the cup and seeps into the paper material.

Recycling difficulties

Much of the recycling problems of these paper cups stems from the fact that the whole item contains plastic. The presence of plastic contaminates the whole paper recycling process.

Another problem is the difficulty of separating the plastic from the paper materials. This would mean a massive logistical problem for the recycling company.

At landfills, these cups can also release methane gas with 21 times global warming potential than carbon dioxide. Other cups are incinerated to avoid the growing landfills, only to release carbon into the air as well.

For the user, separating Sydney takeaway coffee cups coated with plastic from the wax-coated cups (which can be recycled) would be a totally new habit to form. (Teaching new habits to people can be futile.)

Waste Product Recycling Industry

Takeaway coffee cups recyclable or not? Well unfortunately it’s not a simple yes or no answer at the moment and does the confusion exist and what is the best way to dispose of your disposable cups whether takeaway coffee cups are recyclable or not is one of the most controversial questions in the recycling industry at the moment. The takeaway coffee cups are made by covering cardboard with a thin layer of plastic to make it waterproof. The takeaway coffee cups are pretty much the same material as milk and juice cartons which are accepted in recycling almost everywhere. How the cardboard and plastic behave in the recycling process particularly during pulping is the source of all the controversy. They can’t be turned back into paper products and therefore become a waste product if the cardboard fibers remain attached to the plastic. Some recycling processors consider disposable cups a contaminant and have teamed up with workplaces, particularly large businesses, and some councils to tell people to keep coffee cups out of the recycling. There has also been a fair bit of media, like the ABC’s War on Waste, and social media that says cups are not recyclable.

However, there have been reports by both industry groups and major recyclers which clearly state that coffee cups are recyclable in co-mingled and mixed paper bins. A September 2015 report on the recyclability of poly-coated (i.e. plastic coated) fiber prepared for the Australian Packaging Covenant said that (hot) coffee cups “were more likely to break down in the pulping process because of their material composition [as they have thin] polyethylene coatings, they are more susceptible to water ingress, more rapid breakdown and improved recovery of fiber. So as you can see there are confusing and conflicting messages. The industry is talking about these issues and will hopefully come to a consensus soon. At Work: Two of the general recycling rules are ‘if in doubt, leave it out’ and ‘follow the rules’.  Both of which apply here.  If your workplace says ‘no cups in the recycling’ it’s best to follow that rule.  If the recycling contractor considers cups a contaminant they may levy fines on bins with cups in them.

At home, if your council accepts milk and juice cartons their systems should be able to handle the odd coffee cup without any problem. If you have a single coffee on the way home from the bakery, for example, then it’s safe to say it can go in your home comingled recycling without much concern. And according to green chip, the developer of the prep tool, the simple act of flattening paper cups mean they will move though the sorting station in the best way. Switch to reusable which is best of all, ditch the disposable and all this confusion and switch to a reusable cup.  A study found that in terms of the energy used in manufacturing, re-usable cups break-even with paper cups fairly quickly. It takes just fifteen uses for a glass cup to break even, it’s seventeen for a plastic re-usable and thirty-nine for ceramic. So the more often you use your re-usable the lower the overall impact.