Making significant changes almost always takes longer than we’d like. That’s true of a lot of things in life. It’s also something we’re seeing in the recycling industry right now, as billions of single-use paper cups end up in landfills because wide-scale paper cup recycling continues to be just out of reach. It’s frustrating because the technology and commercial recycling equipment exist to turn paper cups into valuable fiber. The challenge is scaling up those operations so that every recycling facility can accept cups for paper recycling.
The recycling industry has been working on paper cup recycling for years. There’s a significant market for recycled paper right now. China stopped importing fiber when its National Sword policy was imposed but still imports pulp (fiber that’s been cleaned and broken down in water). There’s great demand for imported pulp now that the country’s manufacturers can’t access imported fiber. We’re throwing away a valuable resource every time we buy drinks in paper cups and toss the cups in the trash.
Obstacles to Paper Cup Recycling
The biggest obstacle to paper cup recycling is the plastic coating that insulates a paper cup and keeps it from leaking. That coating must be removed before the paper cup can be processed and broken down into pulp, which is formed into new paper products. This certainly isn’t an impossible feat. There are mills that have the appropriate commercial recycling equipment to separate the plastic coating from paper in a cost-efficient way, but not all have been able or willing to take on that process.
Even when mills are willing to take paper cups, material recovery facilities generally aren’t equipped to sort them from other kinds of mixed paper. Very few MRFs have commercial recycling equipment with that kind of sorting technology yet. So most people living in the U.S. don’t have any local options for recycling paper cups yet.
Paper Cup Recycling: What’s New Lately
We told you last year about the state of paper cup recycling, and about a few initiatives that were working to find solutions that could expand the practice. Several fast food chains have been vocal about their plans to make their paper cups more sustainable. As we told you last year, McDonald’s and Starbucks were founding partners of the NextGen Consortium, a group of food and drink companies that is working toward “identifying, accelerating and scaling commercially viable, circular foodservice packaging solutions.” They recently announced they were committing an additional $10 million to the NextGen Consortium to accelerate and expand its research around recyclable paper cups, and other sustainable food packaging.
(While fast food paper cups still aren’t recyclable in most places yet, it’s worth noting that some of them are at least made from recycled content. Starbucks has made its paper cups from 10 percent recycled fiber since 2006. Wendy’s recently announced that its restaurants were moving away from plastic-lined paper cups and would be introducing plastic cups made with 20 percent recycled plastic in 2022. The parent company of Burger King and Tim Horton’s has been testing paper cups made with 30 percent recycled content.)
Another piece of promising news came out of Madison, Wisconsin recently.
In December 2021, the city announced that residents could start putting paper cups in bins for curbside recycling, and in single-stream recycling Dumpsters. Pellitteri Waste Systems upgraded its equipment with a grant from the Foodservice Packaging Institute and the Carton Council of North America, which allows the facility to sort paper cups from other recovered paper. Cups are then sent to area paper mills to be turned into tissue paper and other products.
The hope is that there will soon be many more paper mills able and willing to accept paper cups for recycling. At the end of 2021, a group of major paper mills signed a declaration committing to increasing paper cup recycling. The declaration notes that there are 25 mills in North America that accept mixed paper bales including paper cups, and that these mills have had good success removing fiber from plastic coating. It’s a promising sign that more MRFs will have buyers for paper cups, if they start accepting them with other mixed paper.
Miller Recycling works with customers to find the most sustainable and cost-effective solutions for all their paper recycling needs. We’ll help you evaluate your existing paper recycling systems and make recommendations about any commercial recycling equipment you need to manage recyclable materials. We’ll also keep you updated with all the industry news you need. Contact us today.