MCDONALD'S PARTNERS WITH JAMES CROPPER FOR PIONEERING RECYCLING TRIAL
British master papermaker James Cropper has announced a trial recycling partnership with McDonald's UK, as the two explore pioneering moves in sustainability and recycling.
The partnership will enable paper cups used in McDonald's restaurants across the UK, every week, to be recycled at James Cropper's state-of-the-art reclaimed fibre plant - turning previously non-recyclable, plastic-coated paper cups into new paper products.
The trial recycling scheme - a UK first - has been rolled out across 150 of McDonald's 1250 UK restaurants so far. Paper cups are collected from McDonald's and then baled by Simply Cups, the UK's only paper cup recovery and recycling scheme, before being delivered to James Cropper for reprocessing. Reclaimed fibre can then be used in everything from brochures and stationery to designer gift boxes.
Helen McFarlane, sustainability consultant at McDonald's UK, said: "Paper cups constitute about 30% of our packaging waste and this is a great opportunity to ensure that the quality fibre used in making those cups gets another life. We have recently started to introduce recycling stations in our restaurants to allow customers to separate paper cups, and we're eager to see what this trial will look like, hopefully helping set up the infrastructure for others to use in future."
The partnership with McDonald's is just the start of the journey to make widespread post-consumer paper cup recycling a reality.
The reclaimed fibre facility at James Cropper, which was opened by HM The Queen in 2013, uses a method which separates the paper from the plastic coating, and currently processes the equivalent of 10 million paper cups per week from the off cuts of paper cup manufacturers.
The process results in no wastage whatsoever - with 90 per cent of the cup waste being converted back into FSC® certified fibre for paper production and the remaining 10 per cent, which is plastic, being repurposed as garden furniture, for example.
