Disposable plastic products like cups are available in bulk volumes for dinners and all food services. Paperboard that is used for cup stock will often contain sizing agents like alkylketyl dimer (AKD), alkyl succinic anhydride (ASA), or fluorochemicals.
These are used to prevent liquids and liquids containing lactic acid, like milk or cream, from penetrating exposed surfaces of the paperboard.
One of the difficulties associated with these treatments is that the PE barrier layer that is later put to the treated paperboard has poor adherence. Although the injection of fluorochemicals at the wetend, water box, or size press is an established and well-proven method for imparting water, grease, and other
Given oil resistance to paperboard, the usage of paperboard in applications that involve direct contact with food has been quickly decreasing due to health concerns (Hogue 2018).
Short chain analogues of long alkyl chain fluorocarbons, such as perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), have largely taken the place of longer chain fluorocarbons.
Compounds with six fluorinated carbon atoms or less (also known as fluorotelomers) function nearly as well as the longer chain forms of the same compound, and thus have fewer side effects.
At this time, all long chain fluorochemicals have been replaced (Ritter 2015). Because single-use coffee cups only spend a short amount of time in contact with coffee oils and fatty acids from milk or creamers, paperboard makers and converters have stopped creating paperboard cup stock that contains any kind of fluorochemicals. This decision was made for business reasons.
Despite this, additional sizing additives are still utilized. Both the compositional structure and the choice of materials used in OOH paper coffee cups are to a significant extent determined by the needs of the process for converting, the needed barrier performance for the end-use application, and the convenience features.
However, due to the fact that this process results in a variety of materials and features, it is difficult to recycle the cups. THE EVER-EVOLVING REQUIREMENTS of Customers
It is not surprising that consumers’ perspectives on foodservice goods, such as coffee cups, have shifted throughout time because consumers’ opinions on a wide range of topics tend to shift frequently.
A study conducted in the 1990s on five distinct types of coffee cups came to the conclusion that banning disposable coffee cups would have a bigger financial impact and a more negative impact on the environment than the other disposal options (Hocking 1994).
The research looked at a variety of cup types in terms of regulated environmental requirements, convenience, and cost. It found that consumers base their choice of a cup type on aesthetics and convenience rather than perceived environmental impacts.
The research also found that consumers are willing to pay more for a cup type that meets regulated environmental requirements. On the other hand, that was back in the 1990s. Let’s fast forward to the beginning of the 2010s.
During this time period, Starbucks attempted to adopt a scheme that would allow customers to save 10 cents each time they brought their own coffee cup to a Starbucks location, but only 2% of their clientele took them up on the offer (Minter 2014).
During the same time period, Starbucks began making efforts to demonstrate the usefulness and feasibility of recycling paper cups (Kamenetz 2010).
Today, consumer sentiment has undergone a dramatic shift, which can be attributed to a number of factors, including an increased awareness and concern for the environment, the implementation of favorable regulatory and public policies that ban plastics made from fossil fuels and promote sustainable products, and the rise in popularity of sustainable goods.
Desire on the part of brand owners to convey to their customer base, shareholders, and the general public an image that is environmentally conscious and authoritative.
Consumers, particularly younger consumers that fall into the categories of Millennials and Generation Z, are demanding more sustainable solutions from brands. This is especially true of younger consumers.
In addition, they are open to changing their purchasing behaviors in favor of packaging that is more environmentally friendly. Plastics that are derived from fossil fuels are considered to have a negative impact on the environment due to the fact that they deplete hydrocarbons, make recycling more difficult, and leave a huge CO2 footprint during their entire life cycle.
This was corroborated by the findings of a poll that was carried out in Europe with 5,900 customers from 8 different nations in March of 2020. (Tame 2020).
48% of customers say that they would avoid retailers that are not actively working to minimize their use of non-recyclable plastic packaging, while nearly 70% of consumers indicate that they are actively taking steps to reduce the amount of plastic they use in their own lives. When it comes to environmental friendliness, customers place the highest value on packaging made of fiber.
Features, such as the ability to be composted at home (72%), improved benefits for the environment (62%), and simplified recycling (57%). Around the world, numerous nations, states, townships, and cities are working on legislation that would prohibit the use of plastics in OOH products.
Around the world, people are advocating for the removal of, or even the outright prohibition of, single-use foodservice packaging, such as disposable plastic cups. Examples
Include policies in the European Union, Australia, and Taiwan to completely eliminate the use of single-use plastics by the year 2023. (Chaudhuri 2018). The administration of the Indian state of Kerala has taken their prohibition on the production, sale, and use of single-use plastics one step further by include paper coffee cups in the scope of the ban.
Disposable plastic cups
There has been a substantial amount of development in disposable plastic made for both the local and regional levels. Recycling cups requires gathering and sorting waste first.
According to Bio Cycle, the number of curbside collection programs in the United States has climbed by 87%, going from 14 in 2014 to 48 in 2017. This represents a significant growth from the previous year (Streeter and Platt 2017).
Early in 2018, 326 localities in the United States had access to food waste collection, which is a 65% increase from the 198 communities that had access in 2014. A recent study found that curbside recycling programs in the United States collect an estimated 11.9 million tons of recyclables annually. This figure represents less than one-third of the total 37.4 million tons of recyclables produced in the country (Mouw et al. 2020). The
According to the findings of the report, in order to feed the circular economy of the future, there is a need for changes to be made in curbside access, participation, and participant capture behavior.
Similar initiatives, some of which are much more strenuous, have been launched in Europe and the UK. The Paper Cup Recovery & Recycling Group (PCRRG) is in charge of leading the paper cup recycling effort to achieve the 2016 UK Manifesto Goal, which states that “by 2020 the greater majority of the UK population will have access to information, schemes, and facilities that enable used paper cups to be sustainably recovered and recycled.”
PCRRG demonstrated in 2017 that the capacity exists to recycle all of the paper cups that are currently being used in the UK (Reed 2018). The program has been successful.
significant advancements include the following: more than 4,500 paper cup recycling points for consumers to return cups in bins and in-store take back; 115 municipalities collect paper cups with paper cartons; 21 waste collectors actively participate in a national recycling program to increase recycling of paper cups and transport them to their reprocessing end markets, up from two last year; four recycling paper mills are accepting paper cups, including ACE UK, DS Smith, James Cropper, and Veo. In addition, 115 municipalities collect paper cups this is an extension of Veolia’s national coffee cup solution, which will make it feasible to recycle cups in workplaces across the UK in 2017.
Another strategy would be to change consumers’ behaviors by offering them financial incentives to avoid using disposable coffee cups and work toward achieving zero waste. The city of Berkeley, which is located in the state of California in the United States of America, decided to implement a tax of 25 cents on throwaway coffee cups beginning January 1, 2020.
Food services plastic cups
Food services prefer using plastic cups for their drink in way out orders. Encouraging customers to bring their own cup to use for coffee, which may then be reused. Incentives are also a focus for cafes’ marketing efforts.
For instance, at Nova Familia Coffee in Portland, Oregon, the United States, consumers pay 25 cents for a disposable to-go cup, but they receive a discount of the same amount if they bring their own cup.
The company reported a year-over-year decrease in the use of single-use cups, from 66 to 31%, while 17% of its customers brought their own cups in its transparency report for 2018 to 2019 (Nossa Familia Coffee 2019). In the San Francisco Bay area (California, United States), Blue Bottle Coffee, which is owned by Nestlé, has also piloted a zero-waste cafe.
USA) by giving its customers the option to bring their own cups or rent one from the café, with the goal of converting all of its coffeehouses to zero-waste by the end of the year 2020 and diverting 90% of its waste from landfills in the process.
The nonprofit organization Here Please, which has its headquarters in Oakland, California, in the United States of America, works with cafes and restaurants to lessen their reliance on plastic straws and other single-use items and encourages the adoption of alternative straws.
Reusable cups through instructing baristas on their use, as well as educating customers face-to-face through the use of social media and the provision of visual reminders.
In 2019, it assisted the Perch Coffeehouse in becoming the first café in the city to charge a fee for the use of disposable coffee cups by providing a discount of 25 cents to customers who brought their own coffee cup or charging a small fee for renting out a reusable cup or mason jar. Customers were given the option to bring their own cup or pay a small fee to rent one. In a similar vein, the city of Freiburg, Germany, has been distributing simple and reusable shopping bags to its residents.
Cup system is a disposable hard-plastic OOH cup with a disposable lid that consumers can receive by paying a one euro deposit and returning it to any one of the one hundred participating shops located all throughout the city.
There are currently one hundred of these companies. Another ingenious solution
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