Creative recycling solution turns coffee cups into kerbs
With an extra $115,000 in funding from the Circulate program, Simply Cups hopes to divert 110 tonnes or 11 million coffee cups from landfill within a year. Used coffee cups are collected from commercial buildings, caterers and 7-Elevens in Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong.
The Circulate grant program supports projects that keep materials out of landfill. This year, a project to use mushroom biotechnology to divert textile waste from landfill and a research project looking at using paper mill waste to rehabilitate dams with acid drainage issues have also received funding.
In the past five years the NSW Government has awarded $407 million to over 1160 projects that are now recycling 2.39 million tonnes of waste each year.
Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton said recycling coffee cups is a high visibility issue that is being worked on.
“The more coffee cups we recycle, the less that are littered – and that’s a good thing for everyone,” Ms Upton said.
“Making useful products from waste or recyclable materials is one of the ways NSW is working to be ahead of the game in its response to China’s National Sword policy, which has effectively closed the Chinese market to Australia’s recyclable waste.”