14 DAY TRIAL // The world's first coffee cup recycling plant is now officially up and running in Kendal, UK.
The £5M (€5.8M / $7.6M) plant was opened just two days ago by the Queen, and promises to really make a difference as far as keeping coffee cups out of landfills goes.
Each year, people in the UK use 2.5 billion coffee cups. All of them are coated with a thin layer of plastic, so conventional recycling is pretty much out of the question, Business Green explains.
James Cropper, the company operating this new facility, says it will use state-of-the-art technologies to separate the plastic coating from the fiber. This means that both the plastic and the fiber will be recycled.
“Cup waste is a rich source of high grade pulp fibre, but until now the plastic content made this product a contaminant in paper recycling.
“Our technology changes that and also addresses a major environmental waste problem and accompanying legislation,” explains Mark Cropper, the current chairman of James Cropper.