[B]ritish master papermaker James Cropper has picked up two prestigious awards for its revolutionary CupCyclingTM initiative.
The company won Best Collaborative Effort at the Sedex Awards, against stiff competition from Kellogg’s and Total Worldfresh. Sedex is renowned for being one of the world’s largest collaborative platforms for sharing responsible sourcing data on supply chains.
James Cropper also took home the Sustainability Award at this year’s Foodservice Packaging Association Awards that recognise responsible manufacturing, sourcing, usage and disposal of on the go food packaging.
CupCycling™ is the world’s first recycling technology dedicated to upcycling disposable cups and turning them into beautiful papers and consumer packaging products. The process has the potential to rescue one billion cups by 2020.
Selfridges was the first retailer to announce that it will collect disposable coffee cups generated at its headquarters and stores to be upcycled into paper for its iconic yellow shopping bags in a completely closed loop recycling solution.
Richard Burnett, market development manager at James Cropper, said: “CupCyclingTM is all about collaboration and creating a better and more sustainable world, these awards are a testament to the hard work of everyone involved in the supply chain and we are very proud that CupCyclingTM has been recognised as leading the way on sustainability by industry experts in this field.
“We recognised that infrastructure had to be developed to be able to implement a solution to help tackle the well-publicised issue of takeaway cup waste in Britain. The CupCyclingTM plant possesses the technology to recycle paper cups on a commercial scale and our partnership with waste management companies, as well as coffee shops and restaurants, enables us to turn waste into something much more beautiful.”
Since September 2017, the facility has recycled more than 10 million used cups, but has the capacity to upcycle 500 million cups per year.
Richard added: “We hope the recent award wins shine a light on this genuine world-first solution and show how it is possible to save billions of cups from landfill and give them a second life. The secret to a more sustainable future, however, lies in a collective pledge – so we look forward to gaining further commitment from consumers, retailers, waste management companies, local authorities and beyond.”
For more information about James Cropper’s CupCyclingTM initiative, visit www.cupcycling.co.uk.
