LONDON, UK — Britain’s first fully plastic-free and recyclable lid-free takeaway cup is being launched in the UK today. The revolutionary ButterflyCup – which needs no separate lid – is initially being unveiled at WWT (Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust) centres across the UK. It comes after TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall challenged the major coffee chains to switch to a “properly recyclable” cup to solve the “takeout trash mountain” created by the 5000 coffee cups Britons throw away every minute.
ButterflyCup founder Tommy McLoughlin has solved this problem with “the world’s most environmentally friendly disposable cup.” He hopes it will “lift the lid on the eco disaster” posed by coffee cup plastic waste.
Britons throw away 2.5 billion coffee cups each year, while only 1 in 400 is recycled. If each of those 2.5 billion cups lids were placed on top of each other, they would create a stack long enough to stretch around the entire world.
Most cups to date are not recycled thanks to their plastic lining and separate plastic lid. Unlike traditional takeaway cups, ButterflyCup contains no plastic laminate and crucially, due to its all-in-one design, eliminates the need for a plastic lid.
ButterflyCup lid-free takeaway cup can be recycled in the regular paper bin along with cardboard and ordinary paper, biodegrades naturally and can be composted.
ButterflyCup has already held talks with several of the major coffee chains and is currently used in more than twenty countries across five continents.
Tommy McLoughlin, Founder and CEO of ButterflyCup said: “We are thrilled to be launching in the UK with WWT, an organisation whose ethos of protecting the natural world we share.
“It is a travesty that of the billions of coffee cups the UK uses each year, so few get recycled. We created ButterflyCup to lift the lid on this eco disaster and help solve it. We believe it is the world’s most environmentally friendly disposable cup, and we hope more coffee outlets across the UK give their customers the option of using it in the near future.”
Head of Sustainability at WWT, Lucy Smith said: “We are delighted to be using ButterflyCup across all our wetland sites. We have had brilliant feedback from staff and visitors when we trialled it at one of our centres.
“The product offers a simple but brilliant solution to part of the plastic waste crisis.”
