DS Smith (Dublin, Ireland) a leading sustainable packaging provider and recycler, has this week announced it has been granted funding from Hubbub’s #TheCupFund initiative, the UK’s largest grant fund to support ambitious projects that boost paper cup recycling across the UK.
DS Smith’s Coffee Cup Drop Box is the only national scheme to have been chosen as part of the initiative. The grant will support the roll-out of DS Smith’s specially designed Coffee Cup Drop Box scheme, in partnership with Associated Vending Services (AVS). Each box holds around 700 cups and once full is collected by Royal Mail and returned to DS Smith’s paper mill in Kemsley, the UK’s largest, to be recycled back into new paper packaging products. As part of the development of the Coffee Cup Drop box DS Smith partnered with AVS to trial the service with its members.
AVS members operate tens of thousands of vending machines at locations throughout the UK. The vending machines are present in a varied network of properties including workplaces, local government buildings, NHS sites, leisure centres and cinemas. Each year, AVS members place around 80-90 million cups on the market.Funding received through Hubbub will go towards helping AVS members offset the cost of setting up their recycling service, helping to accelerate a nationwide rollout and reach the initial target of 24 million recycled coffee cups.
“Our target is to recycle at least 24 million cups in a year alone through our partnership with Associated Vending Services (AVS) members and the funding provided by Hubbub as part of The Cup Fund Grant. The grant will support the roll out of our newly launched Coffee Cup Drop Box which will provide the much-needed national infrastructure to reduce the 7.8 million coffee cups that are currently not being recycled across the UK each day.” — Jochen Behr, Head of Recycling at DS Smith
The increase in coffee cup recycling capability is the result of innovation across DS Smith’s Recycling, Paper and Packaging divisions, as well as collaborations with logistic partners and customers. The Coffee Cup Recycling Drop Boxes are available through DS Smith’s ePack ecommerce platform, meaning small and medium size businesses, as well as larger organisations can easily access the scheme.
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