Paper cup acceptance at US mills reaches new milestone

As the demand for recovered fiber grows in the United States, the NextGen Consortium, a multiyear consortium managed by New York-based Closed Loop Partners that addresses single-use foodservice packaging, along with the Falls Church, Virginia-based Foodservice Packaging Institute (FPI), are reporting a “major milestone” in their efforts to further paper cup recycling.

According to the organizations, multiple U.S. paper mills have announced they now will accept single-use polyethylene- (PE-) coated paper cups in bales of mixed paper or polycoat cartons and aseptic packaging, bringing the total of North American mills accepting paper cups to more than 40.

The new mills to accept paper cups include a Newman and Co. mill in Philadephia; a PaperWorks Industries mill in Wabash, Indiana; a Resolute Forest Products mill in Menominee, Michigan; and two Greif mills—one in Austell, Georgia, and another in Milwaukee.

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“The mix of recovered paper we receive has changed dramatically over the last several years, now including much more plastic that we have to separate in the repulping process,” says Jeff Hilkert, vice president of paperboard sales at Greif Mill Group. “Paper cups contain good fiber and are no more difficult to recycle than many of the other prominent packaging categories we see today. We look forward to the value it will bring to our outputs at our mills in Austell, Georgia, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.”

Historically, paper cups have been deemed unrecyclable because of their PE lining, and NextGen Consortium estimates that most of the 250 billion cups used globally every year end up in landfills.

But, as mills compete for shrinking supplies of newspaper and office paper in the recycling stream, there has been growing interest in recovering material that contains high-quality fiber, such as paper cups. Many mills have undertaken repulpability studies to determine whether they can successfully recover the fiber from coated paper packaging for use in recycled-content products, and NextGen Consortium says positive outcomes of those studies have led to higher acceptance of paper cups at North American mills.

According to FPI, the mills that now accept paper cups in mixed paper bales represent more than 75 percent of U.S. mixed paper processing demand.

“Alongside advancing reuse and material innovation, strengthening paper cup recovery and recycling is critical to keeping cups from going to waste in landfills,” says Kate Daly, managing director of the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners. “Paper mills play a critical role in strengthening end markets for cups. By pulling materials through the system, mills accepting cups can drive increased cup processing in recycling facilities and cup collection in communities. We are thrilled to see cup recovery reach this important milestone in the United States, moving us closer to a waste-free future.”

In addition to working with mills that are now accepting cups, NextGen Consortium and FPI note that they continue to work with other interested mills to run studies that can help determine the viability of paper cups in their systems. They also are working with groups throughout the value chain––including brands, material recovery facilities and communities––to ensure more cups can be recycled, especially where viable and robust end markets exist.

“We are thrilled to work with a growing set of mills in their efforts to recover polycoated paper cups,” FPI President Natha Dempsey says. “Reliable and responsible end markets for cups catalyze new opportunities for community partnerships, especially in regions that previously didn’t have the capability to recycle them.”

A full list of North American mills that accept paper cups for recycling can be found here.