Coffee cup recycler Closed Loop Environmental Solutions has received $115,000 in funding from the New South Wales State Government to expand its Simply Cups recycling program.
Simply Cups aims to divert 11 million cups, approximately 110 tonnes, from landfill within a year and turn them into bench seats, kerbing, and car parking stoppers.
“The next time your car hits a bump stop in a car park, you may well be using recycled coffee cups,” Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton says.
“Recycling coffee cups is a high visibility issue we are working to resolve. The more coffee cups we recycle, the less that are littered – and that’s a good thing for everyone.”
Simply Cups collects used coffee cups from commercial buildings, caterers and 7-Eleven stores in Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong.
“Making useful products from waste or recyclable materials is one of the ways NSW is working to be ahead of the game in its response to China’s National Sword policy, which has effectively closed the Chinese market to Australia’s recyclable waste,” Gabrielle says.
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Gabrielle says the Simply Cups program is one of several projects to benefit from the more than $510,000 awarded in this year’s Circulate grant program.
The Circulate grants are made through Waste Less, Recycle More; a $802 million NSW Government initiative to keep waste out of landfill, increase food and garden waste collections, boost business recycling, and invest in new infrastructure.
Government money also went to projects that recycle plastic milk bottles, use mushroom biotechnology to divert textile waste from landfill, and a project researching the possibility of using paper mill waste to rehabilitate sulfidic mine dams.
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