Charge urged for coffee cups to reduce waste

Charging for disposable coffee cups could help cut their use by up to 300 million a year, new research suggests.

It is estimated that coffee lovers in the UK get through 2.5 billion disposable cups every twelve months - translating into about 25,000 tonnes of waste.

But only about one in 400 is recycled.

That is because they are made from plastic wrapped in paper - and the mixed material makes them hard to recycle.

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To make them waterproof, the card is fused with polyethylene - a material that cannot be separated out again in a standard recycling mill.

There are only two sites in the UK where the film is separated from the plastic.

Academics from Cardiff University tested a series of ideas to encourage consumers to use re-usable cups.

In addition to the charge, there were messages reminding people about the environmental impact of single use cups, while free re-usable cups were made available.

In one cafe, the three measures combined increased the use of re-usable cups from from 5.1% to 17.4%.

Professor Wouter Poortinga, who wrote the report, said that while the measures only had a "modest" impact when used alone, "the greatest behavioural change was when the measures were combined".

He added: "Our results show that, on average, the use of reusable coffee cups could be increased by up to 12.5% with a combination of measures.

"With this in mind, the UK's usage of an estimated 2.5 billion disposable coffee cups each year could be cut by up to 300 million coffee cups."

But while a charge on disposable cups had an impact, a discount on re-usable cups did not.

"People are far more sensitive to losses than to gains when making decisions," Professor Poortinga said.

"So if we really want to change a customer's behaviour then a charge on a disposable cup is more likely to be effective."

But the British Coffee Association disagreed with that approach.

Its executive director, Chris Stemman, told Sky News: "We believe that developing new packaging materials and enhancing recycling processes and infrastructures will have a significantly greater and longer-term impact compared with other proposed measures such as charging or taxing disposable cups."

The 5p charge for a plastic bag has had a dramatic effect - cutting their use by 85%.

Andrew Pendleton from Friends of the Earth said: "Preferably, non-recyclable paper cups should just be banned outright so that consumers can go into a cafe and simply be served with a cup that can be recycled.

"We have seen the great environmental benefits that a small charge on carrier bags has made, so we know measures like this are proven to work, and are therefore a progressive step in the right direction."