Coffee cup recycling gets underway in December

The scheme has been made possible by a grant from Hubbub, one of the UK’s most prominent waste reduction charities.  This year Hubbub partnered with Starbucks to launch The Cup Fund, a new grant fund that aims to kickstart paper cup recycling across the UK. The fund will support twelve projects, one of which is ODS’s successful bid for Oxford.

ODS will install dedicated on-street coffee cup recycling bins in high footfall areas: the city centre, Summertown high street and Headington high street. The programme aims to recycle 6.35 tonnes of coffee cups, roughly equivalent to 650,000 paper cups, in the first year.

“Given the scale of the climate emergency, we’re thrilled to be working with Hubbub to stop single use coffee cups going into landfill every year. ODS should be commended for their efforts and innovative thinking to help us foster a clean and green Oxford.

“Oxford is proud to be introducing on-street coffee cup recycling, and we plan to make the most of this excellent opportunity by overhauling our high street litter bins, so that people can recycle more of their waste on-the-go.”

Councillor Tom Hayes, Cabinet Member for Zero Carbon Oxford

“We analysed what people have been throwing into our litter bins and found out single use takeaway coffee cups make up over five per cent of the collected waste from the high streets of Headington, Summertown and Oxford city centre. That’s over 12 tonnes of coffee cups a year going into our general litter bins in these three areas alone. Both ODS and the City Council are deeply committed to promote a sustainable future for the city. Our ambition is to help visitors and residents alike recycle more and so from December, we’re making it possible to recycle coffee cups on-the-go."

Maria Warner, Recycling and Waste Strategy Manager at Oxford Direct Services

For more information on the fund and the winners visit: https://thecupfund.com/winners