The National Cup Recycling Scheme has announced the winner of its ‘Beyond the Bin’ project fund competition. The Centre for Behaviour Change, based at University College London (UCL), will receive over £44,000 to fund research into the barriers to recycling paper cups in mainstream systems and produce the first behavioural systems map focused specifically on cup recycling.
Hannah Osman, Manager of the National Cup Recycling Scheme, congratulated Dr Lucy Porter and Dr Ayşe Lisa Allison at UCL, saying: “The range and scope of applications show the appetite for developing new systems and approaches to cup recycling.
“It was a particularly close call between the top four finalists, but UCL’s bid is a worthy winner. The findings can directly inform future infrastructure design, communication strategies, and the goals of the project – to use systems mapping to identify the key behaviours, barriers and enablers in paper cup recycling, to guide future interventions and policy – closely align with our ambitions to prevent cups from ending up in landfill.”
Matt Spencer, Commercial Director and Group Head of Sustainability for Caffe Nero, said: “Tackling the barriers to cup recycling is something we are very proud to support. For many years we have segregated cups for recycling in store, helped fund the Valpak scheme and incentivised our customers to use reusable cups. We know to further improving recycling rates isn’t just about infrastructure, it’s about understanding behaviour across the whole system. We hope that UCL’s work will provide valuable insight to help retailers, policymakers and waste partners design solutions that make recycling easier, clearer and more effective for customers.”
UCL’s project will run for eight months. Key elements include:
· Developing a behavioural systems map showing how actions, barriers, and enablers interact across the cup recycling system.
· Consulting stakeholders across retail, waste, manufacturing, and policy sectors.
· Analysing data using system effects software and the COM-B behaviour model.
· Conducting a rapid literature review to integrate academic and stakeholder insights.
· Producing a detailed case study of an existing intervention, in collaboration with the National Cup Recycling Scheme/Valpak).
· Delivering recommendations.
The project will be led by UCL’s world-renowned Centre for Behaviour Change, which provides tried and tested behavioural science expertise. It will capture the complexity of cup recycling across multiple sectors and will include consultation across public, private, and academic partners.
The Beyond the Bin submissions covered research and evidence building, recycling and infrastructure improvements, and awareness campaigns. RECOUP, Recorra and Immersive Industry Experiences were close runners-up.
RECOUP proposed research into the barriers to recycling paper cups in mainstream systems, resulting in the technical, operational and design guidance to integrate paper cups into national recycling systems. Recorra’s infrastructure project planned to introduce a dual reuse and recycling cup system across the Broadgate Estate in the City of London. Finally Immersive Industry Experiences offered a creative awareness campaign that uses live-action immersive storytelling, inspiring young people by combining education, technology, and art to shift behaviours and increase cup recycling in public spaces.
The National Cup Recycling Scheme is administered by Valpak by Reconomy. It is the UK’s largest paper cup recycling scheme. Funded by participating brands – Costa Coffee, McDonald's, Pret a Manger, Caffè Nero, Lavazza Professional, Greggs and Burger King – it brings major retailers, waste management companies and UK paper mills together to increase the number of paper cups collected and recycled in the UK.
Since the launch of the scheme, 227 million cups have been recycled into high quality products such as packaging, stationery and even Remembrance Day poppies.