“Green” cup for coffee – brilliant and simple

If coffee is the defining hallmark of 21st century culture, then a cardboard cup is certainly its symbol. But, despite the fact that recycling coffee cups has received a lot of attention, you will be surprised to learn that this small item cannot be recycled. However, the British inventor Martin Meyerskoog claims that all the problems are already behind his invention called “Your Green Cup”.

“A regular coffee cup is made of cardboard, but inside it is covered with a very thin layer of plastic that is very well glued to cardboard, so when it gets to processing plants, it is quite difficult to separate cardboard from thin plastic. So I thought, why not do it differently? Leave the cardboard alone, as it was done before, but the plastic part of the coating is inserted into the glass separately. Thus, in paper recycling plants, plastic will be very easy to separate during the production process, says Martin Mayerskog. While it all sounds simple, it’s actually a mini-revolution in the production of recyclable coffee cups that will save millions of pounds and save large amounts of paper.

The inventor claims that about 2,500 million paper cups are used annually in the UK alone, and about 50 billion (!) a year in the US. He says that removing these wastes from landfills and recycling them is not only important for environmental protection, but also financially beneficial.

We estimate that approximately 25,000 tonnes of paper in the UK could be recycled each year thanks to this innovation.

Millions of cardboard coffee drinkers in the UK are enthusiastic about the innovation: “I think it’s high time to come up with the ‘right’ paper cup that can be recycled,” says Louise.

Source: www.ecology.md