Today, Starbucks is launching the Circular Cup in UK stores. A reusable cup, made in the UK, from approximately six single-use paper cups.

Starbucks Circular Cup offers a sustainable solution to waste materials by giving recycled coffee cups a new lease of life, building upon Starbucks ongoing sustainability commitments and aspirations to become resource positive.

The collaboration with  Circular&Co. – Cornish based producer of sustainable products – has allowed them to scale up and move production of the Circular Cup from China to a factory in St Austell, Cornwall. The relocation of production has created 11 new high-skilled jobs for the region and significantly reduces Circular Cup’s carbon footprint.

How used paper coffee cups get turned into a Starbucks Circular Cup

1. Starbucks collects millions of used paper coffee cups in their stores every year
2. Big bundles of these cups are first taken to Wales to be industrially cleaned, and shredded down to turn the old paper cups into a sturdier reusable one
3. The recycled cups are blended with a recycled plastic to form a strong resin, used in the cups outer layer
4. In Cornwall, the factory transforms the fully recycled material back into cup form, using moulds
5. Once finished, the cups are sent to Starbucks stores across the country, ready for customers to give the once coffee cup a new life as the Starbucks Circular Cup

Made and designed in the UK, here are the unique features

• 100% leak-proof and easy open/shut lid.
• Full aroma experience thanks to a 360-degree opening instead of the usual small opening you see on reusable cups. The 360-degree opening also allows you to drink from the Circular cup just like a normal open cup.
• As well as being dishwasher safe, Circular Cup is 100% recyclable*, keeping all the materials part of the circular economy, and ready to be used again, and again.

Grab a Starbucks Circular Cup in stores across the UK** now, and enjoy 25p off every time you use it.

*Check with your local authority whether you can put polypropylene (PP) plastic in your curbside recycling.

** England, Scotland, Wales only