Monitoring Coffee Cup Waste in the United Kingdom

Running head: MONITORING COFFEE CUP WASTE
Coffee Cup Waste in the United Kingdom and Measures Taken to Monitor, Control and Reduce
Them
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Author Note:

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MONITORING COFFEE CUP WASTE
Introduction:
Coffee cups wastes are required to the monitored, controlled and reduced. The United
Kingdom is one the biggest coffee markets in the world. The country has a immnense coffee
market where people of all class consume huge amount of coffee. In fact, coffee houses has
emerged as competitors of tea cafes both for consumers and revenue generation
(independent.co.uk 2018). The country’s coffee market has evolved into a battle of coffee sellers
of different sizes and nationalities. The United Kingdom is the home to world’s second largest
coffee chain, Costa (costa.co.uk 2018). The country is the host country to the largest coffee chain
in the world, Star Bucks which is based in the United States (starbucks.co.uk 2018). The United
Kingdom besides these multinational coffee chains has a large number of local shops. These
coffee outlets serve millions of consumers every year. The coffee industry generate billions of
revenue and provides employment to large number of people. However, the coffee industry has a
darker which perhaps overshadows all these bright aspects, the devastating impacts of coffee
cups on the environment. The plastic used in the coffee cups have devastating impact on the
environment which has necessitated the government of the United Kingdom place restriction to
monitor and reduce the use of plastic coffee cups. The essay would revolve around the
monitoring and reducing coffee cup waste in the United Kingdom.
Analysis:
Coffee cup pollution is one of the most extensive list of pollution categories that
marks up a significant amount of pollution of the European Country. In a report published
by the Environmental Audit committee Coffee Cups has been a disaster for the country as it
struggles to get rid of them. The committee has set out a strategy for the United Kingdom to deal
with the waste management system from the threat possessed by Britain’s love for coffee (Cho et

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MONITORING COFFEE CUP WASTE
al. 2017). The UK coffee industry is a rapidly growing industry and almost half of all the coffees
and hot drinks are nowadays sold in disposable cups. There are more than four times as many
coffee shops nowadays in the country than that it used to be in the year 2000. Recent studies by
neutral organizations have shown that coffee is consumed by every 1 person among 5 persons in
the United Kingdom. Coffee is also widely available in different supermarkets and garages of the
mentioned country.
Disposable coffee cups are generally made up of paper and lined with plastic, which
makes the different kinds of cups waterproof in nature. The plastic lining is made in such a way
that they are waterproof in nature. The plastic lining is very hard to remove from the cups by
most of the recycling facilities. The used cups generally get contaminated by the contents of the
cup. Unfortunately the UK and the European Union does not consist of a market where food
packaging for contaminated paper is carried on (Lee 2015). Approximately around 2.5 million
coffee cups are used and thrown around each and every year in the mentioned European
Company. The amount of recycled cups amongst them is less than the estimated amount as
because such kinds of facilities do not exist in the country. Most of the people who consume
coffee in the country are not aware of such statistics as they think that the cups are easily
recycled. Therefore they tend to dispose these cups in waste bins more often. This sums up to a
huge problem as because the local municipal organization fails to dispose and recycle such a
huge number of cups. The absence of proper and effective strategies by the organizations as well
as the Government does not help the cause of the country as it piles up the misery (Cho et al.
2017). The extent of the pollution levels from the particular item is really a concern for the
authorities and immediate action is a must for avoiding any future crisis.

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MONITORING COFFEE CUP WASTE
The love for coffee makes people totally forget about the price tag it pays for the
organization. The paper cups that are used by the organization by the organizations to serve
coffee to the customers are slowly building up and polluting the environment. The organizations
generally tend to fool the customers by describing them the use of paper cups rather than that of
plastic cups which tend to reduce the impact on the environment. There are different kinds of
problems that the paper cups tend to create, this includes the likes of;
a. Trees- Trees are one of the basic and most important problems where the paper cup
problem is affected most extensively. As mentioned earlier that approximately 2.5
million paper cups are wasted each and every6 year in United Kingdom. This highlights
the large amount of trees cut around per year to match the huge demand for these cups. A
study highlights that around 6.5 million trees are cut down each year and 4 billion gallons
of water are wasted each year. The cutting down of trees and absence of proper plantation
program in UK is surely one of the most devastating impacts of the environment. This
leads to a degraded ecosystem and is slowly leading the world into a gradual death.
b. Chemicals Emitted in the environment- The production and shipment of paper coffee
cups plays a major role in the pollution of the environment by Carbon dioxide and other
kinds of harmful gases. Apart from this the paper used in the coffee cups is harmful when
disposed in waters as because the chemical tends to mix with the waters and makes the
water contaminated (Jang et al. 2015). The trees though helps in the absorption of Carbon
dioxide but the uncontrolled cutting down of the trees results in the absence of the
absorption of carbon dioxide and as such increases the amount of pollution in the
country. A recent study shows that urbanization in different rural pockets of the United
Kingdom has also led to the increase in the amount of production of coffee cups.