A United Kingdom business has started making office products using both paper and plastic sourced from post-consumer cups.
The product range, which include office stationery, resulted from a collaboration between Simply Cups, recycling specialist Nextek and product designer and manufacturer A Short Walk.
According to Simply Cups, based in Kings Hill, England, trials had shown that what it called a “new, durable polymer,” produced using both the plastic and paper content of paper cups, was “much stronger than conventional plastics and can be readily molded into products at high speeds”.
Peter Goodwin, Simply Cups director, said it had sought new applications for used cups, and the partnership with Nextek and a Short Walk “enables us to produce functional Simply Cups-branded products from the materials we collect.”
“While we are delighted with the significant progress we have made to date, this will be a game changer for us as it will create the required pull for recycled products from the marketplace that will fund further expansion of the scheme,” he added.
Simply Cups, originally established to collect and recycle paper cups, also announced that it had added polypropylene, high-impact PP and PET cups to its list.