Wigan firm backs coffee cup tax wake-up call

Appley Bridge Recycling Ltd is supporting a potential 25p "latte levy", which is a charge to be paid by customers in coffee shops for the use of a throwaway cup.

Carol Mason, director of Appley Bridge Recycling Ltd said the tax will "make a big difference" by waking consumers up to the scale of waste in the UK.

To tackle the 2.5 billion disposable coffee cups chucked away every year, MPs are even calling for a total ban on the cups unless recycling improves.

"We only get one or two of them, as they're so hard to recycle because of their plastic coating, which has to be treated differently," Carol said.

"There's going to have to be a change to the recipe of the cups to make them degradable.

"But the plastic coating protects against hot liquids. Without it, the cups would collapse and companies would get done for selling them."

The #coffeecups mission began after it was revealed that only one to two percent of coffee drinkers were motivated by discounts to bring reusable cups to shops.

"It's not just down to the producers," Carol added.

"Consumers don't think about the fact that we have to get rid of the packaging.

"If they were recycling it themselves, they'd bring reusable cups with them."

Following an 83 percent reduction in use of plastic carrier bags in 2015, resulting from the 5p charge, charity Friends of the Earth is urging Environment Secretary Michael Gove to ban disposable cups that cannot be recycled and force cafe chains to provide recycling bins.