Recycling and recovery

SUEZ to help Costa recycle 500 million coffee cups a year under new scheme

SUEZ is pleased to confirm that it is in advanced talks to agree its participation in an initiative, launched this week by Costa Coffee, which aims to recycle 500 million used coffee cups a year by 2020.
Costa Coffee will now offer a supplement to waste collectors of £70 for every tonne of coffee cups taken to one of three paper mills (James Cropper, ACE UK and DS Smith), which it hopes will help incentivise their wide-scale collection and recycling.

SUEZ is one of five national waste management companies asked to participate in the new fund and is currently working on a commercial offer which will allow customers to remove coffee cups from their residual waste and ensure they are recycled instead – with the Costa funding helping to significantly offset the cost of this service.

Details of the service will be announced by SUEZ in due course.

CEO of SUEZ recycling and recovery UK, David Palmer-Jones, said:

“SUEZ has long-backed the concept of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and we truly believe that producer-responsibility schemes like this have the potential to transform the long-term sustainability outlook for the UK – moving us all closer to achieving a circular economy, where materials are used and re-used over and over again.

“Extended producer responsibility is a fair and equitable concept which sees producers help to mitigate the costs associated with recycling the products and packaging they place into the market.

“We applaud Costa for leading the charge to help tackle the challenges associated with recycling coffee cups, and we hope that this financial incentive helps meet their ambition of recycling 500 million cups a year by 2020 – while also perhaps encouraging others in this market to follow suit and take similar action.”