In response to the problem, the Save a Cup scheme was established by the vending, food service and plastics industries to collect the millions of hard-wall polystyrene cups used in the UK every week. The scheme is run by the Save a Cup Recycling Company. With more than three billion cups collected so far for recycling, the company's objective is to increase the number of cups collected in line with Government targets for recycling packaging waste.

Following many enquiries from both the trade and its clients, Save a Cup diversified its collection and recycling scheme in 2007 to include both paper and polypropylene disposable cups. For the diverse scheme to operate successfully, segregation of the different types of cups at source is paramount, says the company, with a colour coded system set up to make separating waste easier for businesses.

Vending International caught up with Chairman & Acting Managing Director David Hoskin to find out more: "We set up in 1992 to serve the Vending Industry and are funded by our members, with all profits put back into providing a better waste collection and recycling service. We used to offer free collection of waste, with a tariff put on every cup paid for by the manufacturers. In 1999 however, the cup manufacturers pulled back, so we had to look at other funding. Then the operators funded us."

In a call to action David said: "We are a not-for-profit organisation - 70% of our costs are covered by charging clients. 65p per bag of rubbish goes into our coffers and helps support the service along with a membership charge of £65 per year to be part of the scheme, covering the cost of administration, bags and paper per collection. We have to charge £20 per visit on top for diverse scheme clients, but with many signing up to use the service we have a high degree of confidence in the future - people are increasingly seeing the need to recycle.

"We have now traded through the first quarter of our financial year and are on track to meet year end expectations. We have moved to direct collection with our own drivers for the entire country, giving us flexibility to offer all businesses all our collection and recycling services. 

"In the West Midlands we are running a combined operation with the can industry to establish the service offer most likely to succeed with businesses using canned drinks. Paper cup collections are beginning to show real volume growth, as the paper mills are testing which recycled products are the best fit for used paper vending cups. Polystyrene cups remain the dominating item collected and here we have been meeting with shareholders to make our processes more efficient and develop the best possible recycling platform. 

"Trade support has been tremendous in the first quarter, helping us to beat our profit plan by a resounding £22,947, but the pressure is on to grow the company's client base, which is the stand out objective this year. We need your help to achieve this!"

The environment is a growing concern and businesses must be seen to be doing their bit. Save a Cup points out that not only is waste disposal expensive and problematic, it also helps to enhance your green credentials and could help you retain ISO-14001 accreditation.

"There is no doubt we were well ahead of the game when we started and at the time a lot of companies felt they were doing us a favour by using our service. However, attitudes have changed as the recycling issue has taken centre stage in recent years. We still need more support from companies if we are to operate even more successfully. The difficulty we face with the consumer recycling, is they have to be motivated to separate the rubbish themselves. It's either that, or we do it for them and that costs more to facilitate which in turn makes them more reluctant to recycle. As an industry we are under a lot of pressure to recycle but getting the support isn't easy. A lot more could be done with the waste too - the government could link up with us to turn polystyrene cups into rulers for schools etc. If we had clean burn furnaces, we could even turn some of the waste into renewable energy," said David.

Making more of your waste

The base board used in the manufacture of paper cups is recyclable, made from high quality fibres and has potential uses in a number of areas. The fibre is often one of the best quality available to the Paper Maker and it is therefore not surprising that the recycled cups have attracted a considerable level of interest.

Unfortunately, to date, the current Recovery & Recycling infrastructure in the UK has not favoured a practical, sustainable solution to recovering this highly recyclable and valuable material, subsequent to the closure of the specialised recycling facility in Scotland. The Smith Anderson Facility in Fife was set up specifically to deal with Beverage Cartons and, unfortunately, closed before they had a chance to investigate the use of Recovered Cups. The work of the group has focused on finding ways mills without the specialized equipment, can incorporate a percentage of Recovered Paper Cups into their feed stock.

The Paper Cup Recovery and Recycling Group was formed with the objective of identifying an ongoing sustainable route or routes for the recovery and subsequent recycling of paper cups and similar products. Working with The Fibre Technology Association, Save-A-Cup and other major companies involved in the supply chain, the Group is working to resolve the issue of paper cup recovery and recycling in the UK.

The group is developing a programme of work to investigate the options to recover and recycle paper cups in line with current government guidelines, including the Waste Hierarchy and to provide an alternative to landfilling. Whilst long term sustainable options are being developed, the Group is happy to offer advice on individual sites or incidences of Recovered Paper Cups. 

Research and development

In December 2008 The Paper Cup Recovery and Recycling Group reported a successful paper cup recycling trial in which virtually all the fibre from standard Polyethylene (PE) coated paper cups was successfully extracted and converted into high quality tissue fibre for use in products such as facial and toilet tissues.

The paper mill involved in the trial, pleased with the quality of fibre obtained, asked the Paper Cup Recovery & Recycling Group to consider an on-going paper cup recycling arrangement, providing continuity of supply could be maintained, at a level of at least 10 tonnes per month. "This is the absolute minimum, the mill would take much more than this if we could gather together the used cups. A twenty tonne load each week would be better and that's just at one mill," said Barry Read, consultant for the Group. To date this has been achieved, helped by the collection of paper by Save-A-Cup.

Over the past two years the Group has been working with several UK paper mills and the Fibre Technology Association to explore local recycling opportunities for paper cups. The Group has also worked to define how best to prepare used paper cups for recycling. In order to continue this work, an increasing supply of paper cups is required. 

"We did look at including Paper Cups in the raw materials used to manufacture copier papers (and then the copier paper could have been re-recycled). Unfortunately the last UK mill producing copier papers closed earlier this year and that put an end to that project. The Group has taken a fantastic step, but the net challenge is collecting enough used material, a minimum of 120 tonnes through 2009, to maintain continuity of supply to mills. If anyone is already segregating paper cups on site and wants to help the activity of the Group, they should get in touch. It is also important we all promote Save-A-Cup's service," urges Read. All paper cups collected by Save-A-Cup will be passed to the Group for recycling."

AVEX a boost to the initiative

AVEX proved to be a real boost for Save a Cup. General Manager Graham Pascoe and the team had a reassuringly busy time greeting existing and potential customers. Graham said: "Thank you to everyone who called by the stand. As the AVEX banner announces, it was ‘a truly great event'. This was my fifth AVEX and in my opinion Save-a-Cup's best ever. Save-a-Cup has extensively promoted its range of disposable waste streams for paper cup drink dispensing sachets (Flavia filter packs, Kenco singles, etc), which can now be collected by the company. Save-a-Cup has also promoted ‘can recycling' via the ‘Every Can Counts' programme administered by Alupro - another not for profit organisation - which has asked Save-a-Cup to become a service provider." 

Graham continued: "A number of operators brought their clients to the Save-a-Cup stand asking for assistance to either secure or retain contracts by explaining Save-a-Cup's collection and recycling schemes and costs. Other exhibitors informed us that they had secured substantial contracts which would include Save-a-Cup's recycling schemes. We are now in the process of responding to 300 plus companies who visited our stand asking for information to be forwarded, these included vending operators, caterers, commodity suppliers, facilities companies and councils."

Time to step up

Businesses prefer the use of vending machines as they guard against valuable time being ‘wasted' by employees washing up mugs and waiting for the kettle to boil while having a chat with colleagues about plans for the weekend. However, they also have a duty of care to the environment and so some of this saving must be put back into recycling initiatives like these. As long as the consumer can be educated into separating waste effectively, the industry has a better chance of cleaning up both its image AND the environment.

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