National Cup Recycling Scheme
In April 2018, Valpak launched the National Cup Recycling Scheme in collaboration with Costa Coffee. The aim was to tackle the ongoing difficulties associated with capturing and recycling disposable paper cups for hot and cold drinks.
The scheme financially incentivises waste contractors to collect paper cups, offering them an additional £70 per tonne of cups, on top of the commercial fee they receive for the material from the reprocessors.
As a result of the initiative, paper cups are now one of the highest valued materials on the market, making them commercially attractive for waste collectors to include as part of their recycling offering to customers.
The scheme is co-funded by other major brands looking to offer cup recycling to their customers, namely McDonalds, Café Nero, Pret, Greggs, Burger King, Pure and Lavazza
The scheme's success
Since its inception, the National Cup Recycling Scheme has collected and recycled over 163 million paper cups. If stacked from end to end these would stretch from Valpak’s office in Stratford-upon-Avon to the East Coast of Australia!
The Scheme was also a finalist in the National Recycling Awards, and the 2019 Awards for Excellence in Recycling and Waste Management.
