UK MPs call for 25p 'latte levy' on takeaway coffee cups
Committee wants 100% recycling rate by 2023 or total ban
UK MPs have demanded that a “latte levy” of 25p is charged on every takeaway coffee with the aim of recycling 100% of cups by 2023 or a total ban imposed.
Parliament's environmental audit committee on Friday said 2.5bn of takeaway cups were thrown away every year, producing 30,000 tonnes of waste from outlets such as Starbucks, the Whitbread-owned Costa Coffee, Caffe Nero, Harris & Hoole and Pret a Manger.
In a report, the committee said almost all the waste was incinerated, exported or sent to landfill.
“Coffee cups are difficult to recycle, but not impossible. Industry action has been voluntary, non-committal and slow,” the committee said.
Its chair, the Labour MP Mary Creagh, accused coffee shops of “pulling the wool over customers’ eyes” by claiming cups could be recycled when less than 1% were.
“The government should set a target for all disposable coffee cups to be recycled by 2023. If a sustainable recycling system for disposable coffee cups cannot be set up by this date, they should be banned,” she said.
“Coffee cup producers and distributors have not taken action to rectify this and the government has sat on its hands.”
The plastic liner in coffee cups makes them costly to recycle, but businesses supplying and producing them don’t bear the full environmental costs of their disposal, the committee said.
“We received written evidence from the UK’s two largest coffee chains, Costa Coffee and Starbucks. Costa Coffee’s Energy and Environment Manager, Oliver Rosevear, also gave oral evidence. We were disappointed not to receive written evidence from any other major coffee retailers, despite attempts to engage with them. Their silence speaks volumes,” the committee said in its report.
“There is no excuse for the ongoing reluctance from government and industry to address coffee cup waste,” the report said. “Disposable coffee cups are an avoidable waste problem and if the UK cannot be confident of their future sustainability, the government should ban them.”