Fewer than one in 400 paper cups handed out by high street coffee chains are being recycled, The Times has learnt, prompting claims that vendors are misleading their customers.
Starbucks, Costa, Caffè Nero and Pret were accused yesterday of making claims about recycling which result in people falsely believing that their cups are environmentally friendly.
The storm in the coffee cup was unveiled by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the celebrity chef, who revealed that only one firm in the country could separate the coating from the paper so that both can be recycled.
A conservative estimate puts the number of paper cups handed out by coffee shops in the UK at 3bn, more than 8m a day.
Yet, supposedly, fewer than one in 400 is being recycled.
Cups from Costa – the biggest chain with more than 2,000 UK stores – carry the recycling symbol of three arrows in a continuous loop.
Starbucks, which has about 760 shops, says on its website: “We have set a goal to make 100 per cent of our cups reusable or recyclable by 2015.”
Coffee cups need to be sent to specialist recycling facilities where the plastic used to laminate the paper is removed.
Fewer than 3 million were recycled last year, according to Simply Cups, which operates Britain’s only paper cup recycling service.
Source: comunicaffe.com/uk-coffee-chains-misleading-customers-recyclable-cups-says-celebrity-tv-chef/
UK Coffee chains “misleading customers” over recyclable cups
