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We guarantee to recycle 100% of your paper cups
Our easy-to-use paper cup recycling service sends all your used paper cups for specialist reprocessing and turns them into recycled paper.
No scheme membership fees
Guarantees 100% paper cup recycling
Option to buy back recycled paper
Overcome the challenges of recycling your paper cups
Paper cups have traditionally been difficult to recycle because they are made of paper which has a polyethylene film bonded to it. The film makes the cup waterproof and helps it to retain its structure, but it is also difficult for traditional recycling facilities to separate the paper from the polyethylene film.
As a result, millions of paper cups a day go into general waste bins and are sent to landfill or Energy from Waste (EfW) facilities.
Our cost-effective and hassle-free paper cup recycling service includes separate colour-coded bins, tailored collections to suit your needs and the peace of mind that you’ve chosen a greener alternative.
Trusted partnership delivering excellence and innovation
Our partnership with industry-specialist CupCyclingTM by James Cropper marries our extensive waste collection and disposal network with the latest technology in paper cup recycling.
Working together, we provide customers with an innovative and tailored service, guaranteeing 100% recycling and the opportunity to buy office paper made from recycled cups – adding a very big tick in the box for closed loop recycling.
Sustainable recycling
Enhance your green credentials by buying paper made from recycled cups
Available to everyone
You don’t have to be a current customer to use our paper cup recycling service – it’s open to everyone
Monthly reporting
We provide regular statistics so you can see the environmental and financial benefits of recycling your paper cups
We know paper cup recycling is a challenge – let us help you
Paper cups are everywhere – from shopping centres to workplaces, everyone seems to carry around their favourite (skinny) latte or moccachino.
Usually thrown into general waste bins and sent for incineration or to landfill, paper cups have been notoriously difficult to recycle in the past.
Grundon’s paper cup recycling service has changed all that. Expert advice, specially-designed bins, scheduled collections at a time and place to suit you – and the fact you only pay each time we collect – ensures you benefit from an affordable and efficient service that is best for the environment and best for you.
Why choose Grundon?
We collect 7 days a week
Our dedicated paper cup recycling service operates 7 days a week, offering your business flexibility as well as sustainability
We’re a member of the Paper Cup Recovery & Recycling Group
Grundon are a founding member of the the Paper Cup Recovery & Recycling Group, who exists to help develop recycling opportunities for paper cups and transform used paper cups into a valuable resource
We’ll recycle 100% of your cups
Working with industry-specialist CupCycling by James Cropper, we’ll recycle 100% of your waste cups with the option to buy back office paper made from recycled cups
Our customer’s points of view
“We have a significant number of outlets who serve coffee and other drinks in disposable paper cups so this move makes complete commercial sense for us and for our tenants. The opportunity to introduce paper cup recycling by Grundon means we divert the thousands of cups that would have ended up in general waste, into recycling and it really does tick all the boxes.”
Cyrus Annan
Centre Manager, London’s Bond Street Shopping Centre
Setting up your paper cup recycling collections couldn’t be any easier. Simply follow these steps today and we’ll provide you with a professional, reliable and sustainable service.
01
Tell us about your waste
Tell us about the quantity of waste paper cups your business generates or schedule a convenient time for one of our waste experts to carry out a free waste audit.
02
Get a quote
We’ll provide you with a proposal for a bespoke waste management service which is tailored to meet the exact needs of your business.
03
Schedule your collections
We’ll deliver your bins or containers, schedule your collections and start providing you with a first class paper cup recycling service – it’s that easy!
The affordable and environmentally-friendly way to recycle your paper cups
Our paper cup recycling service offers an affordable and environmentally-friendly way to meet your paper cup recycling needs.
We recognise that many organisations work hard to reduce reliance on single-use paper cups and we work with customers to help manage awareness programmes, promoting the waste hierarchy through the use and purchase of reusable cups.
Where making a change is not practical, our experts will provide advice on sourcing paper cups with the correct specification to enable 100% recycling.
We can collect and recycle most types of paper cups:
- We can recycle most polyethylene (PE) coated cups, including double-walled hot cups which are coated inside only (such as coffee cups used by high street chains such as Costa and Starbucks) and cold cups which are coated both inside and out (such as those used by McDonalds for serving soft drinks and milkshakes).
- We can recycle most paper cups manufactured by Seda, Huhtamaki, Benders, Dart and IP.
- We can recycle cups that are made of bleached fibres only. Unfortunately, we cannot recycle cups made with unbleached fibres.
At the scheduled time, we’ll collect your waste coffee cups in one of our certified
CarbonNeutral® collection vehicles, meaning that we do not add to your business’ carbon footprint. We then take them to a specialist cup recycling facility, where 100% of the cup is recycled leaving zero waste.
We also provide monthly reports, full and transparent audit trails and statistics detailing the environmental and financial benefits of recycling paper cups – ensuring the environmental benefits can be publicised for everyone to see.
Frequently asked questions
Why do my paper cups need specialist recycling?
Paper cups are made of two materials – paper and the polyethylene film which is bonded to it. This makes the cups waterproof and enables them to retain their shape and structural integrity when filled with liquids. However, it is the bonding between these two materials that makes it difficult to separate the paper fibres from the polyethylene film.
Only a select few specialist recycling facilities have the technology to accept paper cups for recycling which means most disposable paper cups are placed into general waste bins and either sent to landfill or incinerated at an Energy from Waste facility.
What bins will I need and what do I have to do?
Paper cups need to be recycled separately from other waste, so we deliver specially-designed internal paper cup recycling bins with clear instructions about how to recycle.
Each bin has a removable 7.5 litre central reservoir where excess liquid should be poured into before disposing of the empty cups, and there’s also a specially-designed side pod for the disposal of lids, stirrers, tea bags, etc. These are collected and disposed of separately as general waste.
The bins are designed to allow the collection and stacking of used paper cups and they come with bespoke certified CarbonNeutral® waste sacks (made from sugarcane polymers) as liners, so they are easy to empty and keep clean.
Once the bin is full, pop the waste sack with the cups into one of our colour-coded external cup recycling bins, where they can be stored until your next scheduled collection.
Depending on the quantities of waste paper cups your business is producing and the frequency of collections, we have a variety of bin sizes, including 240 litre wheeled bins, and 660 litre and 1100 litre drop-fronted wheeled containers for larger quantities.
What happens to my paper cups?
The ‘clean’ waste paper cups are taken back to one of our Materials Recovery Facilities for processing and baling. This ensures that the material is of the highest quality before being sent onwards to our partner, industry-specialist CupCyclingTM by James Cropper for recycling.
James Cropper will then process the waste paper cups, recycling 100% of the materials, leaving zero waste.
Approximately 90% of the material will be paper, which will be converted back into Forest Stewardship Council (FCS) certified paper fibre. The remaining 10% is made up of the plastic polymers from the polyethylene film and will be sent for reprocessing into insulation for electrical cabling.
Can I really buy back paper made from paper cups?
Yes. The paper cup recycling service ensures waste paper cups are given a new life as a variety of paper products.
For example, a sheet of 380gsm paper is made of five paper cups, so you can order paper products for your business, such as 100% recycled 80gsm office paper.
By doing so, you complete a closed-loop recycling system that helps to enhance your environmental credentials.
How can you help me encourage staff and visitors to recycle their paper cups?
The more people engage with a project, the better the results, so we go to great lengths to help educate employees and others about the correct segregation and benefits of recycling paper cups.
We work with you to devise a bespoke communications programme to meet your needs, providing information and practical advice, such as clear signage, posters and events such as Waste Awareness Days.