The future of single-use paper coffee cups: Current progress and outlook

Abstract

The expanded use of environmentally friendly and sustainable foodservice packaging continues to be a prime focus of stakeholders across the foodservice value chain. Paper-based coffee cups is one product segment where effective recycling of waste cups remains elusive. As a result, material substitutes for polyethylene liners are emerging to solve the problem of waste cups. In this paper, current and emerging commercial material technologies used in the production of paper-based coffee cups that are readily recyclable with other paper grades are reviewed. Many of these material solutions are also compostable. Special attention is paid to the rapidly evolving, alternative large-scale production of bioplastics. Multiple efforts to effectively develop a more environmentally friendly paper cup are also examined. It is clear that broad adoption of proposed solutions will require an integrated commitment and approach to circular economics. Specifically, this includes: changes in consumer behavior; brand owner initiatives to meet sustainability goals; governmental policies that limit or forbid use of fossil-based cups; and easily accessible infrastructures at the consumer level for the collection, separation, and processing of biodegradable cups.

Full Article

The Future of Single-use Paper Coffee Cups: Current Progress and Outlook

Nick Triantafillopoulos ^a and Alexander A. Koukoulas ^b,*

The expanded use of environmentally friendly and sustainable foodservice packaging continues to be a prime focus of stakeholders across the foodservice value chain. Paper-based coffee cups is one product segment where effective recycling of waste cups remains elusive. As a result, material substitutes for polyethylene liners are emerging to solve the problem of waste cups. In this paper, current and emerging commercial material technologies used in the production of paper-based coffee cups that are readily recyclable with other paper grades are reviewed. Many of these material solutions are also compostable. Special attention is paid to the rapidly evolving, alternative large-scale production of bioplastics. Multiple efforts to effectively develop a more environmentally friendly paper cup are also examined. It is clear that broad adoption of proposed solutions will require an integrated commitment and approach to circular economics. Specifically, this includes: changes in consumer behavior; brand owner initiatives to meet sustainability goals; governmental policies that limit or forbid use of fossil-based cups; and easily accessible infrastructures at the consumer level for the collection, separation, and processing of biodegradable cups.

Keywords: Paper coffee cups; Sustainable foodservice packaging; Barrier coatings; Waterbased coatings; Bioplastics

Contact information: a: Arditos Innovation LLC, San Diego, CA, USA; b: A2K Consultants LLC, 2 N. Fahm St., 2981, Savannah, GA, USA 31402; *Corresponding author: alex@a2kconsultants.com

INTRODUCTION

The popularity of cafés and the like have created a worldwide explosion in the consumption of out-of-home (OOH) coffee and coffee beverages. Recent surveys estimate the market size for single-use OOH hot paper coffee cups at 118 billion units per year with a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1.8% to reach 294 billion units by 2025 (iMarc 2020). Between 2012 and 2017, the number of coffee shops increased 16% and 28% in the US and UK, respectively. This growth is expected to continue, driven by the demand for convenience by consumers (Chaudhuri 2018). Hectic, busy lifestyles lead cash-rich and time-poor consumers to use single use OOH cups. This trend is expected to drive annual consumption of paperboard cupstock from 2.2 million tons (mt) currently to 6.8 mt by 2025, a three-fold increase (Hämäläinen 2019). Although single-use hot coffee beverages are sometimes offered in cups made from expanded polystyrene (EPS), this review is only focused on fiber-based paper cups made from cellulosic fibers and a polymeric barrier liner.

The United States leads all nations in the consumption of OOH paper-based coffee cups: 136 million cups per day. This is followed by China (27.4 million), Russia (16.4 million), Germany (7.2 million), Britain (7.0 million), and Australia (2.7 million) (Ma 2018). Most of the used coffee cups end up in landfills, where they do not biodegrade (Rodden 2018). Although packaging utilizes sustainable, and sometimes recycled, wood fiber to make the paperboard cupstock, the cups are commonly lined with polyethylene (PE) coatings to create the required limited-term hot liquid, oil, and fatty acid resistant barrier functionalities, as well as to maintain cup integrity and preserve coffee aroma required for ultimate customer experience. Paper coffee cups are used for an average of 13 min before being tossed out. In spite of efforts and incremental progress in developed economies to increase recycling rates, we estimate that less than 1% of used paper coffee cups are recycled worldwide because of

1. ineffective or inconsistent recycling schemes among communities and venues,
2. the perception that paper coffee cups are made from a difficult-to-recycle mix of paper and plastic, and
3. the inability of many recycling facilities to commit to processing food-contaminated waste streams.

Recovery of used coffee cups is low due to the limited availability of systematic collecting, sorting, and processing to recycling or industrial composting facilities. In contrast, fossil-based plastic-coated paper coffee cups take more than 20 years to decompose in landfills and are major contributors to the pollution of land, rivers, and oceans.

Consumers, especially those grouped as Millennials and Generation Z, have become increasingly sensitive to the environmental impact of their product choices. This has challenged manufacturers and brand owners to re-examine end-of-life options for paper coffee cups including the collection, separation, and recycling of the different cup components. In practice, most paper coffee cups are either disposed improperly or mixed in with waste streams that are eventually landfilled. Most plastics, including PE, do not readily degrade in the environment, relying on a combination of long duration processes such as photodegradation, thermo-oxidative degradation, oxo-biodegradation, and hydrolytic degradation to completely decompose (Webb et al. 2013). Consequently, the popular single-use OOH paper coffee cup coated with PE has become a big target for consumers, brand owners, governments, and companies looking to replace fossil-based plastics with more sustainably derived and environmentally friendly alternatives (Chaudhuri 2018).

Biodegradation

Biodegradation through composting is an attractive solution to coffee cup end-of-life. Composting is the controlled aerobic biological decomposition of organic matter into a stable, humus-like product called compost (USDA 2010). Unlike degradation, biodegradation relies on microorganisms, such as bacteria and fungi, to metabolize the material so that it completely disintegrates into water, CO₂, and decayed organic material or compost. The resulting compost is full of beneficial soil nutrients and is often used as a soil amendment. As with all chemical processes, composting rates are affected by the chemical composition of material, and the time and temperature of the compositing conditions. Under normal composting conditions where the temperature is at least 25 °C (preferably 35 °C), 60 to 90% of the material will biodegrade within 84 to 180 days, disintegrating into pieces of less than 2 mm in size. Industrial compositing, which operates at temperatures around 50 to 60 °C, reduces this time to less than one month and it is the most preferred method to biodegrade compostable paper coffee cups and other foodservice packaging (European Bioplastics 2017). However, limited industrial composting facilities are available worldwide.

Studies have shown that PE-based coffee cups do not readily biodegrade (Brinton et al. 2016). Two-sided PE-coated substrates are even more recalcitrant, as the second plastic layer retards microorganisms from reaching the fibrous component. Micro-plastic fragments are often released from plastic coated cups during degradation and can easily be transferred by surface water into streams and oceans. In contrast, discarding a cup into the ocean takes decades to disintegrate and decompose. As a result, there is keen interest to streamline the collection, sorting, and recycling of OOH paper coffee cups, while in parallel pursuing substitute barrier technologies that assist compostability and biodegradation.

Topics for Review

This paper reviews the current state-of-the-art barrier coatings and other technologies used to produce recyclable or biodegradable OOH paper coffee cups. It discusses efforts to expand coffee cup recyclability and compostability. Focus is placed on worldwide progress in the search for alternatives to plastic barrier coatings and challenges that must be addressed to successfully replace fossil-based PE. The task is formidable, as successful replacement of fossil-based plastic coatings will require cost-effective delivery of all essential barrier and functional cup properties (e.g., heat sealability, anti-blocking, mechanical strength, and thermal insulation) within proven manufacturing processes. Additionally, alternatives to the current cup platform must be economically competitive and contribute to the circular economy. For the purpose of this review, only alternative technologies that have already been commercialized are included. Challenges for recycling paper coffee cups and the emergence of schemes to streamline the process and increase recycling levels are also addressed. Finally, there is discussion of key trends that will affect the substitution of fossil-based barrier plastics.

Structural Design of the Paper Coffee Cup

Most paper coffee cups are currently made from coated paperboard, or cupstock, which is either single- or double-walled. The barrier coating is typically made from PE, which is extruded or laminated to the paperboard. The cup comprises a paperboard substrate with a basis weight of 150 to 350 g/m² and a PE liner of 8 to 20 g/m², which has a thickness of about 50 μm.

Figure 1 shows the essential design elements of a coffee cup: a cylindrical wall portion (A) along a vertical lap seam (B), which joins the end edges (C) and (D) (Mohan and Koukoulas 2004). In this design, a single-sided PE-coated board is formed into a single-wall cup. The outer (top) layer may be coated to enhance printability and heat sealability. The end edges are affixed to one another using conventional methods, typically melt-bonding (hot air or ultrasound).

Paper cups also include a circular rolled rim (F) and a separate circular bottom portion (E) attached and heat sealed to the side wall. The latter is a thicker caliper than the bottom paperboard base. Sometimes, the bottom cupstock is two-side coated with PE for a better seal. Figure 2 is a photograph of a paper coffee cup made using an extruded fossil-based PE coating.

Fig. 1. Design elements of a single-wall paper cup adapted from Mohan and Koukoulas (2004)

Fig. 2. Single-wall paper cup manufactured by SOLO

Double-wall paper cups have inner and outer paperboard cupstocks separated by an insulating middle layer. A corrugated medium has often been used as a middle layer to add structural rigidity and thermal insulation. In some double-wall cup designs, a combination of layers imparts additional thermal insulation to the cup, either by including an air gap (Fig. 3) or by incorporating polymeric insulating stripes (Fig. 4) between the outer and inner paperboard layers. Such designs remove the need for a clutch or sleeve, have lower maximum wall temperature for “warm touch” without burning the fingers, and allow the contents to stay warm longer, while protecting aroma.

Although it represents between 5% and 10% of the weight of the final cup, the inner liner is critical to the end-use performance of the cup and its manufacture. The liner must impart critical resistance to hot and cold liquids, as well as resistance to fatty acids present in milk and cream. It also has an important heat-sealing function, which ensures the integrity of the cup rim, side seam, and cup bottom. Seal elements at exposed edges must be resistant to imbibition from liquids, which will degrade the mechanical integrity of the cup. Additionally, seals must withstand the high temperatures experienced during the serving of hot beverages.