Frugalpac – the invention that could end the storm in a coffee cup!
An answer to the problem of the 2.5 billion coffee cups that don’t get recycled in the UK every year will be unveiled with the launch of a revolutionary new paper cup. Entrepreneur Martin Myerscough, Chief Executive of British company Frugalpac, has solved the problem that only 1 in 400 paper cups is currently recycled and most end up in landfill.
The Frugalpac cup is made from recycled paper, is competitively-priced and recyclable in normal paper mills. And a test by the independent inspection, product testing and certification company Intertek found the carbon footprint of a Frugalpac cup is about half that of many of today’s normal paper cups. Anti-waste campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall called for action earlier this year that resulted in questions being asked in the UK parliament and several national newspaper front pages.
More than 2.5 billion coffee cups are disposed of in the UK every year[1]. Put them end-to-end and they would go around the world five and a half times, would weigh as much as a battleship and are made from over 100,000 trees. But very few of these cups gets recycled and nearly all end up in landfill – that’s 25,000 tonnes of waste a year – enough to fill London’s Royal Albert Hall.
Existing cups are made using virgin paper from mature trees. A thin layer of plastic film is bonded to the paper while it is flat. The film provides the waterproof layer to the cup, without which the cup would leak and go soft. Waterproof chemical agents are also added to the paper. This flat sheet is then printed and formed into the cup. The plastic film inside the cup is not only bonded tightly to the paper but is also trapped in the seam, adding to the difficulty of recycling.
Existing cups require specialist recycling facilities because the plastic film does not separate from the paper in a normal recycling centre. The specialist process uses a lot more energy and chemicals than normal paper recycling. In most countries, once the cups have left the store, there is no mechanism for transporting them to specialist mills.
At present, there are only two places in the whole of the UK that can recycle conventional paper cups. That means only 1 in 400 paper cups actually gets recycled.But Frugalpac cups are made by making the paper into a cup first without adding chemicals to the recycled paper, and then applying a thin plastic liner to the inside. The plastic liner is lightly bonded onto the paper cup. The top of the liner is then rolled over the lip of the cup which looks, feels and performs just like the conventional cup.
Because the liner is so lightly glued in place, when the cup goes to the standard paper mills it separates from the paper in the recycling process. This means Frugalpac cups can be disposed of in newspaper recycling bins. This will help a confused public – a Which? report found 8 in 10 people thought existing cups were already being recycled![2] The paper used to make Frugalpac cups can be recycled up to seven times, typically for newspapers.
As a result of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s campaign, the packaging industry and major coffee retailers launched a Paper Cup Manifesto in June 2016 with the objective of significantly increasing paper cup recovery and recycling rates by 2020.
The manifesto has more than 30 signatories representing each stage of the paper cup supply chain from raw material suppliers, cup manufacturers and retail high street brands to waste and recovery operators and paper reprocessors. They include Starbucks, McDonald’s and Costa. Frugalpac cups could make a very significant contribution to meeting the manifesto’s aims.
Martin Myerscough said: “It’s great to see Hugh’s campaign has had such an effect and that there’s now a real commitment across the industry to tackle this problem. People were shocked to learn that existing paper cups are only used once and rarely get recycled. We’ve spent the last two years developing our cup and we hope now that coffee chains and cup producers will see Frugalpac as an answer to this issue. The unique way we make our cups allows us to use recycled paper and not virgin cardboard from mature trees. It also means we don’t have to add waterproofing agents to the paper. Our cups are acceptable to all normal paper mills.”
Intertek tested the Frugalpac cup, which is made from recycled paper, against current cups which use virgin paper. The exisiting cups’ footprint was tested with one going to landfill, one being incinerated and the other coming from China and ending up in landfill.
The Frugalpac cup carbon footprint was 24.6g of CO2 provided the cup is taken to a recycling centre, the current cup going to landfill was 39.4g of CO2, the incinerated existing cup was 42.3g of CO2 and a current cup from China that ended up in landfill came out at 52.5g of CO2. The carbon footprint comparison was assessed using the world’s leading and most trusted software and data: SimaPro 8.1 and Ecoinvent 3.1.
The Intertek report concluded: “The Frugalpac cup has the lowest carbon footprint. This is due to its recycled content as well as its recyclability at the end of its life. The conventional cups have higher carbon footprints because they are made from virgin paper and currently cannot be recycled in normal UK municipal waste streams.”
ENDS
Coffee Cup Facts
- International Paper estimates that in the United States over 58 billion paper cups are discarded to landfill every year.
- Because most disposable cups are coated with polyethylene, both composting and recycling of disposable cups is rare.
- 71% of the world’s paper supply comes from diminishing forests.
- Conventional paper cups are made by bonding a thin layer of plastic film to the paper while it is flat. The film is bonded very tightly to the paper. The flat sheet is then printed and rolled into a cup form, locally heated and then the parts of the cup are pressed together. The film effectively is the glue for the cup. Try to take one apart yourself and remove the plastic layer with your fingers and you’ll understand how difficult it is to recycle.
- Frugalpac cups are made from recycled paper and formed into a cup. A thin plastic liner is then bonded into the cup. But because it’s so lightly glued in place, it separates in one piece in a standard recycling mill. As there are no chemicals in the paper, it is easily recycled.
- Frugalpac can use recycled paper – which is not permitted in conventional cups – because by inserting the lining after the cup is formed, no part of the outer paper is in contact with the liquid.
Notes to Editors
[1] Which? magazine, “Where Will Your Cup End Up?” November 2011
[2] Which? magazine, “Where Will Your Cup End Up?” November 2011
