Paper Cup - Environmental Impact

Environmental Impact

Recycling. Most paper cups are designed for a single use and then disposal. Very little recycled paper is used to make paper cups because of contamination concerns and regulations. Because most paper cups are coated with plastic, both composting and recycling of paper cups is uncommon. Although paper cups are made from renewable resources (wood chips 95% by weight), paper products in a landfill may not decompose, or may release methane if decomposed anaerobically. The manufacture of paper usually requires inorganic chemicals and creates water effluents. Paper cups may consume more non-renewable resources than cups made of polystyrene foam (whose only significant effluent is pentane).

Paper vs plastic. A life cycle inventory of a comparison of paper vs plastic cups shows environmental effects of both with no clear winner. PE is a petroleum based coating on paper cups that can slow down the process of biodegrading. PLA is a biodegradable bio-plastic coating used on some paper cups. PLA is a renewable resource and makes paper cups more compostable, whereas PE is neither renewable nor compostable. Neither PE or PLA is completely biodegradable, and paper cups can only be recycled at a specialised treatment facility regardless of the lining.

A number of cities — including Portland, Oregon — have banned XPS foam cups in take-out and fast food restaurants.

Emissions. A study of one paper coffee cup with sleeve (16 ounce) shows that the CO₂ emissions is about .11 kilograms (.25 pounds) per cup with sleeve - including paper from trees, materials, production and shipping.

Habitat loss trees used. The loss of natural habitat potential from the paper coffee cup (16 ounce) with a sleeve is estimated to be .09 square meters (.93 square feet).

Over 6.5 million trees were cut down to make 16 billion paper cups used by US consumers only for coffee in 2006, using 4 billion US gallons (15,000,000 m3) of water and resulting in 253 million pounds of waste. Overall, North Americans use 58% of all paper cups, amounting to a staggering 130 billion cups.