British packaging firm DS Smith has announced its involvement in a new trial to research coffee-cup recycling.
The project, which is set to begin in January 2018, will be run on behalf of the Paper Cup Recycling and Recovery Group (PCRRG).
DS Smith says that the feasibility of recycling used coffee cups will be analysed at its Kemsley Paper Mill, in Sittingbourne, using cups from existing waste-collection infrastructures.
The project aims to provide insight that can be used to inform cup design, collection and reprocessing methods in the future.
Coffee cups have presented ‘significant challenges’, according to the company, due to the plastic lining inside the cups, as well as food-waste contamination and dealing with coffee remnants. However, it says that it is committed to providing sustainable solutions for the coffee-to-go sector.
Recycling Tests
“DS Smith has already been actively involved with PCRRG members such as Costa, and on lab and pilot plant-scale recycling tests,” said Matthew Prosser, managing director at DS Smith Recycling UK.
“I am pleased this work has developed to be able to undertake research on an industrial scale that will provide the whole supply cycle with data on the recyclability of paper cups in mainstream packaging mills,” Prosser continued.
DS Smith operates nine paper mills across Europe, producing around 2.8 million tonnes of corrugated case material and specialist products every year.
The Kemsley mill is the second-largest recovered-fibre-based paper operation in Europe, and the biggest in the UK.
Last week, the company reported that revenue grew by 19%, to £2.8 billion, in the first half of its financial year.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Sarah Harford. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
