PAPER HOT CUPS

Short answer – it depends on the local infrastructure and the amount of food on your used packaging, so let’s help you get it to suitable industrial composting. Here’s our Keen to compost form. If in doubt and you can’t access a suitable composting bin, put it in general waste.

Longer answer… The recyclability certification we have looks at the material our product is made from, but real-world recycling of used packaging is complex, and infrastructure is different everywhere. There’s variation within the same country. Waste sorting facilities vary in how they select what goes on to a paper mill. Paper mills have slightly different processes, so what is accepted can vary between mills.

Then there’s the food factor – food is unwanted contamination at a paper mill. Packaging which has served your meal is very likely to have grease, sauce or food scraps. Liquid can also spoil card and paper which would otherwise get recycled. Recyclers can’t risk ruining their systems, so contaminated packaging generally goes to incineration or landfill.

All this is why we still recommend industrial composting as the best solution for Vegware products. We are proud to offer industry-leading expertise and support for clients to Close the Loop with composting.

Over 250 of Vegware’s fibre products are made from recyclable materials:

- Paperboard: double and single wall cups and paper lids, soup containers and paper lids, food cartons, Bon Appetit paper bowls and lids, microflute, paper cutlery, premium burger boxes, pizza boxes, paper cold cups, kraft food trays, hot food cones, kraft clutches, sandwich cards, cup carry trays, carry packs.

- Bagasse / moulded fibre: Nourish moulded fibre, bagasse takeaway boxes and tableware, bagasse portion pots, Gourmet range bases and bagasse lids, chip trays.

- Paper: recycled paper carriers, paper straws, paper bags with no window, sugar sticks.

These fibre ranges are not made from recyclable materials:

- Paper tissue (not accepted at paper mills): napkins, centrefeed rolls.

- Wood (not accepted at paper mills): wooden cutlery, stirrers.

- Paper or paperboard with too much window: salad boxes, sandwich and wrap boxes, Gourmet card window lids, sandwich platters, paper window bags (PLA / NatureFlex / glassine bags).

With a worldwide focus on updating packaging regulations, it is more important than ever to have independently verified information about how Vegware’s products perform in a variety of end-of-life scenarios.

Vegware still see industrial composting as the best solution for our full range, but we have long known that specific paper mills can recycle our PLA-lined paper cups. With the market shift away from plastics, fibre-based materials are a big focus for Vegware. We want to increase understanding and avoid greenwashing. So investing in third-party laboratory testing and certification arms us and our clients with the information we need.

We are adding this phrase to the relevant product descriptions on our website product and in our marketing material. That is so that procurement professionals can see this information, to help with their decision making.

Our on-product messaging is aimed at people using the products to eat their lunch. Our messaging here will stay focused on industrial composting. We aren’t adding recyclability info to our on-product messaging, as we want to avoid accidentally encouraging food waste contamination in otherwise dry recycling.

We would encourage our distributor partners to describe the relevant products as ‘made from recyclable materials’ in line with our certification, rather than solely ‘recyclable’. Our Environmental team is on hand to support any Vegware distributor, and business using our products, with information about composting.

Distributors can share this simple form with Vegware clients: Vegware.com/KeenToCompost

Our paper cups are accepted in The National Cup Recycling Scheme

The UK Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI) publish ‘Design for Recyclability Guidelines’, which go into detail in section 6.13: “Food waste sitting in the pack (free moving food), food attached to the surface (3D residue), and traces and stains that fully soak the paper, is regarded as unacceptable.”

The UK Competition & Markets Authority issues the Green Claims Code, a legal framework for businesses. This highlights ‘recyclable’ as potentially misleading if used without explaining exactly how the item can be recycled.

Vegware’s Environmental team includes Chartered and Associate members of the Chartered Institute of Wastes Management (CIWM), who hear about contamination challenges first-hand from recyclers.

Whilst reviewing and testing our fibre-based products for recyclability, Vegware conducted in-depth interviews with paper mills, waste collectors and labelling experts.

Producer responsibility is important to us. Vegware has always aimed to be well-informed about packaging waste, and transparent with our clients to build trust between the packaging and waste sectors.

There are also legal frameworks we need to follow regarding claims, and sharing accurate information helps our distributors and clients comply with the law. The UK Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) can deal with infringements of consumer protection law using civil action and criminal enforcement. The EU is developing anti-greenwashing regulations. The US Federal Trade Commission’s Green Guides govern the claims a business can make.

In the UK, the government is still working out the details of how the new Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme is going to work. According to the guidance published so far, we know that the fees Vegware pays will vary by material type and how recyclable it is.

Vegware’s range includes a huge variety of fibre-based products which will fit into the EPR categories ‘paper / card’ and ‘fibre-based composites’. We don’t yet know how these new rules will judge recyclability but are pleased to have certification stating many of our products are made from recyclable materials.

These two words often get mixed up, but they are very different.

Recyclable: is it able to be recycled? This refers to an item’s options when it is discarded – can it be reprocessed into a new product?

Recycled content: has it already been recycled? Recycled content is material which was previously recovered from the waste of a different product. So when Vegware talks about our recycled paper bags, these are made with paper which was previously waste.