— By Plasteurope.com staff — 

Café-restaurant chain Starbucks launched new to-go cups in May. The paperboard cups for hot drinks, which replace the usual polyethylene barrier layer with a mineral-based coating, are gradually to be available in 10 European countries, including Germany, France, Switzerland, and Austria. Later this year, the cups are also to be launched in the UK and Ireland. Starbucks did not provide information on the expected quantities.

The cups are manufactured at Transcend Packaging’s (Ystrad Mynach, UK; www.transcendpackaging.com) Welsh plant. The silicon dioxide coating is supplied by Qwarzo (Rovato, Italy; www.qwarzo.com/en), while the paperboard comes from Finnish paperboard and packaging manufacturer Metsä Board (Espoo; www.metsaboard.com).

The coating can be found both on the inside of the cup and on the outside of the corresponding carton lid. Silicon dioxide, also known as silicic acid, is used as a release agent in food supplements, among other things.

Related: Has the requirement to offer reusable packaging for takeaway failed?

Disposable cups for hot and cold drinks are generally considered to be difficult to recycle due to their usual material mix of plastics and paper. According to Starbucks, different legal requirements and recycling infrastructures in Europe also make it difficult to recycle such cups.

Plastics-coated coffee cups reduce the recycling yield in paper mills and lead to more waste ending up in landfills or incinerators, said Vincent Mooij, director of Circpack at environmental services provider Veolia (Paris; www.veolia.com).

According to Starbucks, the new cups can be recycled in existing waste management and recycling systems throughout Europe. They have also been certified as home compostable by DIN Certco.