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NextCupCycle Might Be the Next Big Thing for Recycling Disposable Coffee Cups
1 Min Read
Less than 25 percent of the UK’s estimated 3 billion paper cups are recycled annually and earlier this year, the Environmental Minister in the UK proposed a new tax on coffee cups in an effort to reduce waste.
In a bid to stop the tax from going into effect, Professors Dr. Edward Kosior and Dr. John Mitchell worked with Nextek and Ashortwalk to develop NextCupCycle, which blends coffee cups’ high-quality paper and plastic to produce a durable resin to create other products.
Independent has more information on this new concept:
A radical initiative turning disposable coffee cups into a unique “durable” resin could prove to be a breakthrough in recycling unsustainable takeaway cups as well as dramatically reducing waste.
Less than 0.25 per cent of the estimated 3 billion paper cups used each year in the UK are currently recycled, meaning the vast majority end up in landfill or energy-from-waste incinerators.
Earlier this year, the Environment Minister suggested a new tax could be placed on coffee cups in a bid to reduce waste.
However, calls for disposable paper cups to be more widely recycled are challenged by the make-up of the cups themselves.
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