Costa Coffee has pledge to recycle as many paper cups as it puts on the market by 2020, approximately 500 million cups annually.
To reach this recycling volume, cups will be Costa’s, as well as used cups from any source.
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Although Britain has the capacity to recycle all its used paper cups, waste management companies say it is not economically viable to take the used cups to the specialist recycling facilities.
To address this, Costa Coffee has decided to pay waste management companies a subsidy of £70 per tonne of used cups delivered into recycling.
Dominic Paul, Costa Managing Director, said: "By creating a market for cups as a valuable recyclable material, we are confident that we can transform the UK's ineffective and inconsistent 'binfrastructure' to ensure hundreds of millions of cups get recycled every year.”
Costa will assume extended producer responsibility for the packaging it puts on the UK market.
Costa says this initiative demonstrates that used paper cups are fully recyclable and leading producers in the UK are starting to push for more and better recycling.