Starbucks’ coffee cup charge to pay for recycling

STARBUCKS is using cash raised from its 5p charge on throwaway coffee cups to back recycling schemes across the country.

The chain introduced the levy last summer in all 950 UK outlets as part of a drive to cut plastic waste by encouraging customers to switch to reusable cups.

In theory, Britain has enough specialist recycling plants to process all the throwaway cups from high street chains but there’s no infrastructure to collect them.

As a result, just one in 400 of the estimated 2.5 billion single-use cups handed out each year are recycled.

A new ‘Cup Fund’ has been set up using cash raised from the Starbucks charge and managed by the environmental charity Hubbub, which will offer grants of between £50,000 and £100,000 to councils and other organisations to set up at least ten waste cup collection programmes.

Schemes will be chosen by an independent panel of recycling experts. Hubbub’s chief Trewin Restorick said: ‘It means we’ll be able to collect cups in significant volumes in areas where there may not have been any drop-off points before.’

Starbucks’ 5p levy has seen reusable cup use rise from 1.8 per cent to more than 5 per cent of hot drinks sold nationwide.

The firm also offers a 25p discount to customers who bring their own cup, and other chains have similar schemes.