The company, rijo42, are aiming to lead the way in making the £10.1 billion UK coffee shop sector more sustainable.
In the UK alone, we now drink over 95 million cups of coffee a day and as result, we’re throwing away 2.5 billion coffee cups each year, with fewer than 1 in every 400 being recycled.
The problem up until now has been that coffee cups have had to have a plastic liner to stop them disintegrating when hot liquid is added. This means that they can only be processed by a few specialist plants and suitable recycling points are limited, so that most plastic-lined cartons and cups are thrown away in regular bins and make their way to landfill sites.
The new eco-cups look and perform ‘exactly’ like their traditional plastic-lined rivals but use a water-based barrier coating solution instead. That means they can be recycled in conventional and widely-available mixed-paper recycling bins, just like a newspaper, instead of requiring specialist recycling facilities.
Trewin Restorick, founder and CEO of environmental charity Hubbub UK, said: “Compostable sounds better, but it can actually make things worse if the cups are put in the wrong bin.”
Compostable cups that end up in non-food waste recycling bins can break down, contaminating the rest of the recyclable waste and causing the whole batch to be rejected and sent to landfill.
rijo42 decided to go down a different path, developing and producing plastic-free cups that are completely recyclable. They’re available to all rijo42 customers and are manufactured in the UK, cutting down on emissions caused by freight, and the material used in their construction is sourced from sustainably managed forestry with FSC or PEFC accreditations.
Sean Griffin, director at rijo42, says: “We’re absolutely delighted to launch our eco-friendly, 100% plastic-free coffee cups to our customers and take another step on our no plastic journey. This is exactly what’s needed to push back on the unsustainability of other single-use cup designs, and we’re proud to be leading the way in the UK in this area.”