When people hear we recycle coffee cups, the most common answer is “I thought they weren’t recyclable!”. We love to reply “They are.” The longer answer is that recycling is always and only Where Facilities Exist. Most people live in areas where their curbside programs and local recycling companies simply don’t want cups. However, in a few cities across North America, there are great recyclers doing great things to divert cups and many other materials from landfills. We recycle some cups right in our own facility, but when we are at capacity, we send it to our partner recyclers.
We like to pulp down cups and experiment with getting to their highest and best use. Our current pet project, inspired by Chop Value's recycled chopsticks, is to create beautiful tiles from cup pulp. At first, the pulp is thick and chunky, due to the presence of plastic, but it shreds nicely to become the building block of the tile. More innovations to come, we promise, and more tiles for sale (coasters, anyone?)
