Nature & Environment

Millions Of Coffee Cups Are NOT Recyclable

Elaine Hannah
First Posted: Aug 04, 2016 05:41 AM EDT

It is reported that millions of coffee cups are not being recycled in the UK, according to Fearnley-Whittingstall's programme. People who put their coffee cups into the recycling bin each day are unaware of this: they are not "recyclable."

According to Science Alert, the number of disposable cups that are thrown each year is approximately about 2.5 billion a year or 7 million cups a day. The consumers think these paper cups are eco-friendly choice and coffee companies are even putting "recyclable" on the cup. Most of these coffee cups are fused with a layer of polyethylene that makes the cups waterproof. On the other hand, this could make them difficult to recycle because they cannot be easily separated. There are some recycling facilities needed to process these kinds of cups. Likewise, the thin seam of the card on the inside of the cup is in contact with the hot liquid. Because of this, it must be made from virgin paper pulp and not a recycled paper, according to Feast Magazine.

Science Alert stated that even though some coffee chains claim they have recyclable cups, the evidence shows that most of these cups were not sent for recycling. Approximately, there are fewer than one in 400 cups get sent for recycling. Fearnley-Whittingstall explained the consequences of this. The public think that the cups they are using are recyclable and unaware that they are not recyclable. With this, they don't ask for a solution.

The coffee shop industry is a demanding and the most successful retail sectors in the UK. You can see British drinking coffee every morning. They are caffeine addicts just like other nationalities all around the globe, according to reports. In the UK, there are about over 18,000 outlets of coffee shops across the nation and this could grow to more than 27,000 by 2020.

 

See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone

More on SCIENCEwr