UK-based coffee shop chain Costa has launched a nationwide cup recycling scheme in nearly 2,000 stores of the country.
The program has been designed to recover and guarantee the recycling of its takeaway cups. Costa will also accept competitor takeaway cups to increase cup recycling in the country.
Costa team members will collect takeaway cups from the customers at their stores, which will be stored at the back of house on a cup rack.
Later, Costa will work with their waste partner Veolia to transport takeaway coffee cups to specialist waste processing plants for recycling.
Based on a successful trial in around 45 stores across London and Manchester, Costa is planning to distribute the recycling racks to the stores by the end of January 2017.
Costa is also funding for the research on the cup recyclability at the Sheffield University.
Jason Cotta, Managing Director of Costa UK&I, said: “As the UK’s largest coffee shop brand, with stores up and down the country, we want to make it as easy as possible for the public to recycle their used coffee cups.
“Our research in Manchester and London shows around 40 cups per day are left in stores, which means we have the potential to recycle 30 million Costa cups a year.”
“We are committed to taking a lead and, like many others, we are working hard to find a cup that can be recycled anywhere.”
Costa manages around 2000 coffee shops in the UK, in addition to around 1,180 in 30 overseas markets.
