Green recyclable Cups

Essex_Jim

Hi all,

Not quite money saving, yet looking for advice.

My local running club hosts a 10K race each year. The club are working hard to make the race as green as possible.

Half way round the course we have a water station. Uses circa 400 odd cups for a race up to 650 participants. Last year we moved from plastic cups to compostable cups.We have now been told by our local council that these to go into 'general rubbish' bags that would probably go to land fill. While at least a step away from single use plastic, not recyclable?

Can anyone suggest a greener alternative?

Ectophile

If you pick the right plastic cups, they could be gathered up and recycled.

Nick_Higg

I think the compostable cups are going to be your greenest option. Its kinda fine that they go to landfill - the point is that they will break down. you could possibly go one better and see if you can collect them and put them in a green bin or take them to the tip and put them in the green waste skip if you can explain to the operatives. Failing that, bury em in your own garden or put them on your own compost heap.
They probably cant be recycled because - well they will just break down...

lcfcstephen

Few things on this.
1. Compostable cups don't work in the vast majority of UK composting sites. They have a longer composting time than most places compost for, and require near perfect conditions which is clearly almost impossible to achieve in the real world. They are treated as a contaminant and so are removed when the composting places do their checks. You could perhaps compost this at home, but you wouldn't be able to do this with the volume that presumably you needed, unless you had several volunteers willing to compost these cups in their own compost heaps.
2. The main purpose of Landfill is to stop things breaking down (as this releases gases which we want to contain), so if you opened up a landfill you might find a newspaper and an apple core from the 70's which would have decomposed naturally, but didn't because it was in a landfill. So even though compostable cups in landfill does seem to make more sense, it doesn't actually help the situation.
3. Plastic cups aren't a main plastic recycling component so you might struggle to find anywhere that actually recycles them. And if it's included in rubbish bins it's unlikely to be separated, and unlikely to be recycled anyway. The issue with recycling (apart from the obvious - we're creating too much stuff) is that there is very little money in it. I am on the management team for a recycling company and we achieve about 86% recycling rate because recycling is the better thing to do. However, financially, none of the waste streams are worth the sorting and preparing that is needed to do anything with them. It makes more financial sense to just landfill everything.

Glad

many of the races I take part in or marshall for are not supplying any cups now, the runners are told to carry their own cups to be filled at the water stations

augo123

I've also had the experience of being asked to carry my own cup - find it the most sustainable option and you can even get collapsable ones. Just something to consider!

Hillbilly1

Nick_Higg wrote: »

I think the compostable cups are going to be your greenest option. Its kinda fine that they go to landfill - the point is that they will break down. you could possibly go one better and see if you can collect them and put them in a green bin or take them to the tip and put them in the green waste skip if you can explain to the operatives. Failing that, bury em in your own garden or put them on your own compost heap.
They probably cant be recycled because - well they will just break down...

Compostable cups are set to decompose in set conditions - like a compost heap. So are unlikely to breakdown in normal landfill.

Hillbilly1

I don’t think many runners would be surprised to be asked to bring their own bottle but if it’s a ‘refill’ station does that have a time issue?

Try a company like vegware if you need disposable single use cups. Their plastic alternatives are recycled via their closed loop system - so the only snag is your location as they aren’t UK wide just yet

GreatApe

Hand them out some cucumbers instead, nature's water bottle

Drat they come wrapped in plastic don't they!!