Stora Enso and Huhtamaki launch industrial scale recycling programme for paper cups in Europe

Huh­ta­ma­ki and Sto­ra Enso have joined forces to launch a new paper cup recy­cling ini­tia­tive, The Cup Col­lec­tive. The pro­gramme, which is the first of its kind in Europe, aims to recy­cle and cap­ture the val­ue of used paper cups on an indus­tri­al scale. Ini­tial­ly the pro­gramme will be imple­ment­ed across the Benelux. With the aim of set­ting new stan­dards for paper cup col­lec­tion and recy­cling in Europe, The Cup Col­lec­tive has issued an open invi­ta­tion for part­ners from across the sup­ply chain to get involved in work­ing towards a sys­temic Euro­pean solution.

The EU has set recy­cling tar­get for paper and board pack­ag­ing of 85 per­cent by 2030. Paper cups are recy­clable but need to be col­lect­ed before they can be turned into new paper prod­ucts. The Cup Col­lec­tive ini­tia­tive will cre­ate the nec­es­sary col­lec­tion infra­struc­ture to sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase the recy­cling rate of wood-fiber in paper cups. Above all, the pro­gramme will make it as eas­i­er for con­sumers and busi­ness­es to col­lect used paper cups to be regen­er­at­ed into valu­able recy­cled raw material.

The first paper cup col­lec­tion bins will be avail­able in restau­rants, cafés, office build­ings and trans­port hubs in the Brus­sels and Ams­ter­dam met­ro­pol­i­tan areas. The Cup Col­lec­tive aims to recy­cle half a bil­lion paper cups in the first two years and, as it is designed to be scal­able, has the capac­i­ty to sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase recy­cling vol­umes in Europe. The pro­gramme is man­aged by Co-cre8 — co-cre8.earth, a UK-based firm with over a decade’s expe­ri­ence in design­ing and imple­ment­ing recy­cling pro­grammes across Europe.

 

“Huh­ta­ma­ki is a world leader in devel­op­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing recy­clable fiber prod­ucts. For us, every cup counts. We want to go to the next step and ensure that recy­clable cups also get effec­tive­ly recy­cled. We have com­bined the best exper­tise from Huh­ta­ma­ki and Sto­ra Enso to cre­ate this new vision for indus­tri­al scale cup col­lec­tion and recy­cling,” says Eric Le Lay, Pres­i­dent, Fiber Food­ser­vice EAO at Huhtamaki.

 

“Sto­ra Enso wants to accel­er­ate the cir­cu­lar­i­ty of all pack­ag­ing mate­ri­als and we have an excel­lent foun­da­tion to make that hap­pen. The paper­boards we make are designed to be recy­cled and our own pro­duc­tion sites, includ­ing Langer­brugge in Bel­gium, can process and recy­cle paper cups into new fiber-based prod­ucts. By part­ner­ing with Huh­ta­ma­ki and Co-cre8 we will now be able to pro­vide a plat­form to col­lect and cap­ture the val­ue of paper cup fibers on an indus­tri­al scale,” says Han­nu Kasuri­nen, EVP, Sto­ra Enso Pack­ag­ing Mate­ri­als division.

Call for action

The Cup Col­lec­tive will work with part­ners through­out the sup­ply chain, from the largest restau­rants and café chains, retail­ers and trans­port hubs to inde­pen­dent cof­fee shops, col­lec­tion part­ners, waste man­age­ment oper­a­tors and pol­i­cy­mak­ers across Europe to address the chal­lenges to recy­cling and deliv­er a viable scal­able solu­tion for Europe. Ini­tial­ly, The Cup Col­lec­tive is being financed by the two com­pa­nies but a key fac­tor in the suc­cess of The Cup Col­lec­tive will be its abil­i­ty to become self-fund­ing in the future.