Paper Cups

Paper cups come in a wide variety of forms. The two main groups are cups for hot beverages like coffee and tea and cups for cold beverages like soft drinks and milk.

A paper cup is produced from paper or board, which is itself typically produced from sustainable forest resources, and a polyethylene sheet laminated together to form a single sheet. This sheet material is then formed into a paper cup cylinder and the bottom sealed with a disc to provide the typical paper cup, which can be produced in a wide range of sizes from 'espresso cups' through to tub shaped food containers.

The major component of any paper cups is, by definition, the paper and it is easy to forget that cellulose fibre, (the individual fibres used to produce a sheet of paper or board) is probably one of the world's first and most abundant bio-polymers. Modern paper and board companies comply with the sustainable forest guidelines, such that for each tree taken down at least one replacement tree is planted. In this way the major constituent of the paper cup, the cellulose, comes from a renewable resource.

Of course, all this would be wasted if the only option were to throw away the used paper cup, but this valuable resource can be reused even after you have finished your coffee or lemonade. The Paper Cup Recovery & Recycling Group has based an overall strategy on the "Hierarchy of Waste" and has sought to identify options moving ever closer to the 'top of the ladder'. Because of the very strict laws defining what materials can be used in the manufacture of products which are used in food contact situations, no post consumner recovered paper should be used in the production of paper cups in Europe, although some recycling of industrial recovered paper could be allowed. It is worth noting that in the United States some recycling mills are capable of producing recycled pulp that meets the US Government Food & Drug (FDA) requirements for inclusion in food contact paper. This would represent the ultimate goal of recycling paper cups, to return them back into new paper cups!