Paper Coffee Cup Recycling Campaign
Hubbub, the popular charitable trust in the city of Manchester has teamed up with popular retailers such as Caffe Nero, McDonald’s, Costa, KFC, Nestle, Greggs, Pret, Waitrose and many others to recycle a huge number of coffee cups and contributing to the environment. Around 20,000 cups are said to be saved and recycled in the campaign to begin with.
The project will begin after placing 11 coffee cup bins on the Oxford road to collect coffee cups for the next three months. The support and cooperation of the citizens is expected to separate out and throw the coffee cups in the bins. A new technology will be used to detect the same.
The main aim of this campaign is to collect 20,000 paper cups and recycle at least 15,000 cups into flower pot holders to be placed in the community gardens in Manchester. Around 2.5 billion cups are thrown in the litter and only 1 out of 400 cups are recycled every year. This sensitive fact led to the beginning of this campaign. Also called the #1MoreShot campaign, it will include a number of processes to make the objective successful. Polymer experts Nextex and ashortwalk specialize in the process of turning disposable coffee cups into a unique polymer which will help in the complex recycling subject.
The paper cups are manufactured with the addition of polyethylene to make them waterproof, which cannot be separated out in a standard recycling mill. Around 272,602 number of disposable cups which are used in Manchester. The random litter of the cups and street cleaning accounts to around 7.5m pounds every year. This will reduce to a large scale with the help of this campaign.
Several franchises have taken private initiative to add up benefits for this campaign. Starbucks has launched a trial partnership with FrugalPac in which they will produce and use 100% recyclable paper cups. The 3 month trial campaign will end in December and if it goes successful, the campaign will go permanent in other areas of the city.
Along with the disposal and collection of the paper coffee cups, residents will also be educated about the recycling process since it is difficult to recycle the polyethylene material that is used in it. Hubbub’s co- founder Gavin Ellis is quite positive about the initiation and is set to make this campaign a successful one. A small change and initiative can lead to a better and cleaner city along with resource saving, Like organic k-cups creation to make our world more green.
