When food service operators and distributors talk about removing plastic from beverage packaging, the conversation almost always focuses on the lid. Replace the plastic lid with a fiber alternative, or switch to a lid-free cup format, and the plastic problem is solved. In practice, this is only half the picture.
The cup body itself is the overlooked issue.
Most paper cups on the market, including many marketed as sustainable alternatives, use a polyethylene (PE) or polylactic acid (PLA) lining to make them liquid-resistant. PE is a conventional plastic derived from fossil fuels. PLA is a bio-based plastic, but it is still a plastic material that requires industrial composting infrastructure to break down, and it releases microplastics under certain conditions. Both materials create the same fundamental problem: a cup that cannot be recycled in standard paper streams and that contains plastic throughout its entire structure, not just in the lid.
This matters increasingly for two reasons.
The first is regulatory. The EU Single-Use Plastics Directive and upcoming revisions to EU packaging regulations are progressively tightening restrictions on plastic components in food and beverage packaging. For horeca operators and distributors supplying European markets, a cup with a PE or PLA body is a compliance liability that will only become more expensive to manage.
The second is operational. As procurement teams in food service look beyond the lid and begin evaluating the full material composition of their packaging, the distinction between a PE-lined cup and a genuinely plastic-free cup is becoming a meaningful differentiator in supplier selection.
Water-based coating addresses both issues at the material level. In this approach, the paper cup is treated with a plant-derived aqueous barrier that provides liquid and grease resistance without any plastic component. The cup body contains no PE, no PLA and no PFAS chemicals. It is fully recyclable in standard paper streams and compostable under EN13432 certified conditions. A detailed breakdown of how water-based coated lid-free cups perform in food service conditions illustrates the practical implications for operators.
For operators building plastic-free packaging programs, the practical implication is significant. A lid-free cup with water-based coating eliminates plastic from both the lid and the cup body in a single product change. For those using conventional cup formats with separate fiber lids, switching the cup body from PE-lined to water-based coated completes the transition.
The shift from PE and PLA lining to water-based coating is not yet widespread in the market. But as EU regulatory pressure increases and procurement standards in food service evolve, it is likely to follow the same trajectory as the move away from plastic lids — from niche differentiation to baseline expectation.
For food service operators and packaging distributors evaluating their next procurement cycle, the question is no longer only whether the lid is plastic-free. It is whether the entire cup is.
Mahdi Sadough
Director, Ekoroll