New Disposable Coffee Cup Should Improve Recycling Of Billions Of Containers

A British inventor has created a disposable coffee cup with a plastic liner that separates cleanly from the paper shell, making it much easier and affordable to recycle. Though current disposable coffee cups lined with plastic are recyclable, the process is difficult and expensive for recycling plants. That means many disposable cups that could be recycled never are. Starbucks, for example, recycles only about 39 percent of the four billion it uses each year. The new invention, dubbed “Green Your Cup”, can be pooled with all other paper products, including magazines and newspapers, at the recycling plant where the plastic liner is easily stripped from the paper.