Petition · past parliament
Force high street coffee chains to use widely recyclable disposable cups.
Rejected
10 signatures
What the petition asks
In the UK alone, we send ~2.5 billion disposable coffee cups to landfill every year. Companies such as, Starbucks, Costa & Nero are not doing enough to make these everyday items widely recyclable/compostable. Instead they continue to use disposable cups which they know will go straight to landfill.
Today, coffee cups are made from paper lined with a polyethylene (plastic) resin which, makes the cup waterproof. These 2 fused materials cannot be separated at a standard recycling centre (there are only 2 places in the UK which can do this) and therefore the cups are classed as non-recyclable and are sent straight to landfill. A standard paper cup weighs ~11 grams this equates to 27.5 million kilograms of non-recyclable waste every year just from a standard disposable coffee cup.
Why it was rejected
There was already a petition about this issue. Duplicates are rejected so signatures collect in one place.
Timeline
| 30 Nov 2016 | Petition opened for signatures |
| 6 Dec 2016 | Rejected by the Petitions Committee |
Key facts
Signatures
10
Status
Rejected
Rejected
6 Dec 2016
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Source: the official petition page. Last checked 15 Jul 2026.