Plans for Tax on Coffee Cups Quashed for Fear of Antagonising Food and Drinks Industry

18 Mar 2016 --- Taxing disposable coffee cups in England like the 5p charge on supermarket plastic bags was yesterday proposed by a government minister but was then quashed, according to a report. Environment minister Rory Stewart said that the 5p change on plastic bags- introduced in October last year- had been successful and said that coffee cups seem to be a “very good thing to look at next”.

Stewart told fellow MPs that taxing disposable cups could prevent millions of cups ending up in landfill.

Stewart made the comments after it was revealed that just one in 400 coffee cups are recycled every year.

According to the Daily Telegraph, Labour MP Rob Marris asked Stewart in the House of Commons: “Could the government have a look at the problem of wretched number of plastic-lined paper takeaway coffee cups, the overwhelming majority of which never get recycled because of the difficulties of ripping out the plastic lining of the paper? It’s a huge problem.”

Stewart replied: “I absolutely agree. It’s a huge problem and there are tens of millions of these things being produced and thrown away.”

“As you pointed out, many of these thing cannot by recycled either by the way they’re disposed or because of the composition of the cup.”

But Marris later said a 5p tax on coffee cups would not work and not encourage consumers to bring in their own cups.

However, the suggestion from Stewart was later quashed by government spokesman, as the government is thought to be concerned about further antagonising the food and drinks industry after the sugar tax.

A government spokesman said: “Whilst the minister acknowledged more needs to be done to recycle coffee cups there are no plans to tax them.”

Earlier this week, it was reported that Britain’s high-street coffee chains had been accused of deceiving customers and contributing to Britain’s landfill problem after it was discovered that only one in 400 papers cups are actually recycled.

The discovery, originally reported in The Times newspaper, found that of the 2.5 billion paper coffee cups thrown away every year less than one percent is recycled.

This is due to the fact that the cup’s polyethylene coating must be removed before the cup can be recycled.

Due to the extra work involved, it is claimed cups are not been recycled through public waste collections and are instead sent to landfill or incinerated.

Café Nero, Costa, Starbucks and Pret have all been accused of making false claims about recycling, hoodwinking customers into believing their cups are environmentally friendly.

Cups from Café Nero and Pret both carry a recycling symbol. The sleeves of Pret cups says “100 percent recyclable” while Café Nero’s says “100 percent recycled.”

Critics say that customers might assume that whole cup is being recycled, when it tends to be only the sleeve which is recycled.

Peter Godwin, the co-founder of Simply Cups, which operates Britain’s only paper recycling service, told The Times that it expected to recycle just six million cups this year, compared to the 2.5 billion that are used in Britain a year.

Goodwin said: “It’s dramatically less than one percent but no one know this. The consumer has trust in the brands that if they put a recycling sign on a cup then that product is being recycled. People are being misled.”

“People are getting fed up with environmental stories and greenwash. We see a great cry in the marketplace for transparency. We need to tell people where the material is going to and what is being made into.”

Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall, the anti-waste campaigner, said: “The truth is [coffee cups] are barely recyclable at all in the everyday commonly understood sense of the word.”

“They cannot be recycled through any of the normal public waste collection services- which are consistently diverting them to be incinerated or sent to landfill.”

Starbucks did not give details of the percentage of the cups its recycles. 

Costa said it was researching how to ensure it cups were recycled effectively.

Pret said it was working with other companies within the industry to find ways to improve the recovery and recycling rates of takeaway cups.

Michael Wight, head of food safety at the FSA, said: “Food is a valuable commodity and this is why we cannot afford to let food go to waste. We welcome WRAP’s initiative and will be focusing on food waste this year for Food Safety Week.”