DS Smith said that it will participate in the coffee cup recycling trial that will be carried out at its Kemsley Paper Mill located in Sittingbourne, UK.
Slated to begin in January 2018, the project is being carried out on behalf of the Paper Cup Recycling and Recovery Group (PCRRG).
The trial will analyse the feasibility of recycling used coffee cups gathered from existing waste collection infrastructures and using them for making non-food contact papers.
The project will offer insight on an industrial scale, which can be used for cup design, collection and reprocessing methods in the future.
In Europe, DS Smith operates nine paper mills that hold capacity to produce about 2.8 million tonnes of corrugated case materials and specialist industrial products per annum.
According to DS Smith, Kemsley is the second largest recovered fibre-based paper operation in Europe and the biggest in the UK with an annual production capacity of over 800,000 tonnes.
Under DS Smith closed loop recycling offering, packaging paper made from recycled fibres and finished paper products will be used in the group’s packaging production plants.
DS Smith Recycling (UK) managing director Mathew Prosser said: “DS Smith has already been actively involved with PCRRG members, such as Costa, on lab and pilot plant-scale recycling tests.
“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.”
DS Smith produces recycled corrugated case materials and speciality papers for the packaging industry.
