The Cup Collective: Huhtamaki and Stora Enso partner on Benelux recycling initiative

14 Sep 2022 --- Huhtamaki and Stora Enso are partnering to launch The Cup Collective – a new paper cup recycling initiative. The program, touted as “the first of its kind in Europe,” intends to industrially scale the recycling and value capture of used paper cups and is set to operate across Benelux. 

The collective will collaborate with partners throughout the supply chain, including the biggest restaurant and café chains, retailers and transportation hubs, as well as independent coffee shops, collection partners, waste management operators and policymakers throughout Europe. 

It aims to address recycling challenges and deliver a workable, scalable solution for Europe.

The collective’s goal is to set new standards for paper cup collection and recycling in Europe.

The Cup Collective is financially backed by the two businesses initially, but its capacity to become self-funding in the future will be crucial to its success.

Recycling troubles 
Paper cups are recyclable, however, they need to be collected before they can be turned into new paper products. In line with this, the EU has set a target that aims to upscale paper and board packaging recycling to 85% by 2030.

According to Innova Market Insights, most consumers prefer to drink their drinks from paper cups rather than bottles.

The Cup Collective initiative will contribute to this target by creating the necessary collection infrastructure to considerably increase the recycling rate of wood-fiber in paper cups, which, according to Innova Market Insights, most consumers (32.8%) prefer over bottles (16.8%) or cans (16.7%). 

Certainly, in metropolitan areas such as Amsterdam and Brussels – where the first paper cup collection bins will be available in restaurants, cafés, office buildings and transport hubs – the program will make it simpler for customers and companies to gather old paper cups to be recycled into raw materials.

The Cup Collective has the potential to significantly increase recycling volumes in Europe and aims to recycle half a billion paper cups in the first two years.

Partnering for a paper panacea
Co-cre8, a UK-based company with a decade’s experience in planning and managing recycling programs around Europe, is in charge of running the program.

“For us, every cup counts. We want to go to the next step and ensure that recyclable cups also get effectively recycled,” says Eric Le Lay, president of Fiber Foodservice Europe-Asia-Oceania at Huhtamaki. 

Stora Enso says that it wants to accelerate the circularity of all packaging materials and that they have found a foundation that can make it realize. “The paperboards we make are designed to be recycled and our own production sites, including Langerbrugge in Belgium, can process and recycle paper cups into new fiber-based products.”

By partnering with Huhtamaki and Co-cre8, Hannu Kasurinen, executive vice president at Stora Enso Packaging Materials division says the company will now be able to provide a platform to collect and capture the value of paper cup fibers on an industrial scale.

By Mieke Meintjes