Solutions: The Next Generation Cup

Fully recyclable and compostable cups are the symbolic next-generation solution to single-use beverage waste.

While the tonnage of beverage cup trash is modest compared to the total amount of discarded waste, a cup-in-hand is a reminder to conserve that prompts many to make an extra effort to toss their cups into recycle bins.

When it comes to hot drink cups, that effort is usually wasted. The 600 billion hot drink cups discarded annually contain high-quality fibers worth recycling but most (99.75%) end up in landfills. This is because the plastic film lining these cups – essential to retaining liquids and keeping them warm – adheres so tightly to fibers that recycling requires an expensive, process used in only a few US cities (Seattle, San Francisco, and New York).

The NextGen Cup Challenge offers $10 million in grants for design ideas and materials for an easily recyclable cup. Closed Loop Partners, an investment group that funds the development of sustainable goods and recycling technology, devised the challenge. OpenIdeo will judge the competition which began in September. McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Yum! Brands are funding sponsors (as well as rushing to create plant-based plastic linings of their own).

In 2008 Starbucks predicted 25% of its cups would be recycled by 2015. That never happened. The 4 billion cups Starbucks currently send out the door contain 10% post-consumer recycled fiber but that is insufficient for what recyclers need at scale. Fortunately every fast-serve restaurant and coffee and tea shop faces the same problem which makes their combined purchasing power a big incentive.

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This is why the decision by McDonald’s to team up with competitor Starbucks was widely acclaimed. Together they produce 4% of the world’s discarded cups.

“This is an issue for society, for the environment,” says McDonald’s chief supply chain officer Marion Gross, “It’s a societal issue, and there’s a way that we can come together, not as competitors, but as problem solvers. We can use our collective scale to make a difference.”

Keep your trash

A policy decision in China adds new urgency to the task. In 2017 more than 30% of US recyclables and half of the world’s recyclable paper and plastic were exported to China for processing. In 2018 China revised its rules to permit no more than 0.5% impurities in recyclables shipped to its shores. Mixed paper and plastics were banned. US recyclers who once paid $80 a ton for China-bound mixed paper and cardboard now pay haulers $22 per ton to take their recyclables to the landfill.

Learn more: www.nextgenconsortium.com