Partnering with Keep Scotland Beautiful to recycle millions of coffee cups

DS Smith and Keep Scotland Beautiful have teamed up on the Cup Movement® - an initiative designed to offer coffee cup recycling in the Greater Glasgow area.

In 2019, Scotland made its way through 500 million single-use coffee cups, with Greater Glasgow contributing almost 100 million cups alone. With coffee cup recycling rates at only 4%, over 90 million cups ended up in landfill or incineration to produce energy-from-waste (EfW).

Focussing initially on Glasgow, Keep Scotland Beautiful has created a city-wide programme called the Cup Movement^®, to increase awareness, guide businesses, and reduce coffee cup waste. As part of this programme, DS Smith will roll out its successful Coffee Cup Drop Box recycling service. 

Made from 100% recycled materials, our Coffee Cup Drop Boxes can hold up to 700 used cups, and once full, we will collect the boxes in conjunction with Royal Mail Relay and take it to our paper mill in Kemsley for recycling back into new paper products.

Catherine Gee, Operations Director for Keep Scotland Beautiful said:

“Cup Movement aims to work across all sectors to find solutions for reducing the amount of waste associated with single-use cups. We are delighted to have the support of DS Smith and to include the Coffee Cup Drop Box in our suite of interventions.

Its unique design is well-suited for overcoming some of the barriers to cup recycling, particularly for SMEs, and we are excited to be rolling it out as part of our city-wide initiative in Glasgow.”

Independent businesses of all shapes and sizes who want to introduce a coffee cup recycling scheme can find out more about the Drop Box service from Keep Scotland Beautiful.