Single-use Coffee Cups

An estimated 1.84 billion single-use cups are used by Australians every year!

Although they look like they are made of paper, disposable coffee cups are usually lined with plastic - which unfortunately means they are not recyclable via most local council kerbside collection programs.


The Problem

Coffee and other hot beverage cups are estimated to be the second largest contributor to litter after plastic bottles.  Clean Up volunteers report that over 10% of rubbish they identify as paper is coffee cups and are often shocked to find out that they are in fact plastic lined - which means they are potentially even more damaging then previously thought as they are not readily recyclable and they are not biodegradable.


Single use coffee cups are currently accepted for recycling in only a handful of council collections. Thanks to the thin plastic lining that makes them waterproof, most coffee cups can’t be efficiently processed in most paper recycling mills, so the majority are incinerated or sent to landfill. And when people erroneously place the coffee cups into their recycling bins, it can contaminate the higher value plastic that can be recycled; often meaning the whole load has to go to landfill.


According to our friends from BioPak, up to 90% of single use hot beverage cups end up in landfill - equating to around 60,000 kg of plastic per annum.

What can you do?

Together we can help reduce the number of single use coffee cups that are handed out at cafes across Australia. Check out the top actions you can take today! 

                                                                     More Actions You Can Take

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