Stora Enso and Huhtamaki-backed Cup Collective have announced the addition of its first partners to capture the value of used paper cups by recycling at an industrial scale.
The new partners include McDonald’s, SSP – The Food Travel Experts, C2 Centre, and the National Railway Company of Belgium (SNCB).
According to Finland-based Huhtamaki, the addition of new partners will help to advance the initiative’s ability to significantly increase paper cup recycling volumes in Europe.
The Cup Collective initiative intends to recycle half a billion paper cups in Europe within the first two years. It aims to recycle paper cups, maximise the cups’ value and regenerate them into recycled raw materials.
Huhtamaki said that the first paper cup recycling containers are currently accessible in public areas of Brussels, including eateries and transportation hubs.
The collected material is recycled in facilities in the region, including Stora Enso’s site in Langerbrugge, Belgium. The initiative is open to wide-ranging stakeholders from both inside and outside the value chain to join the Cup Collective as partners. It is open to food service providers, merchants, transportation providers, waste collectors, waste management providers, and other players from all over Europe.
The programme was introduced in September this year in collaboration with co-Cre8, a UK-based firm that designs and implements recycling programs in Europe.
co-cre8 co-founder and managing director Peter Goodwin said: “It is time to make paper cup recycling an easy, everyday activity.
“We are now able to provide a platform to collect and capture the value of paper cups at an industrial scale and are calling businesses to get on board and become part of the Cup Collective programme.”