Coffee is the most popular drink in the world with a staggering 2 billion cups consumed every day.  In the UK alone we drink approximately 95 million cups per day. Now being somewhat of a coffee addict and a would-be connoisseur I take my favourite drink seriously and the one thing that is most upsetting is the needless discarding of so many cups. Most coffee cups have a plastic layer in the cup itself along with the ubiquitous plastic top which makes them non-recyclable and of course non-reusable.

We throw away more than 2.5 billion disposable coffee cups annually, and around half a million tonnes of ground coffee waste goes to landfill.

The situation is changing slowly and consumers are more aware of the packaging issues and it is good to see an increase in the use of one’s own recyclable cup, but there is still an environmental and sustainable cost to the throwaway culture of the world’s favourite beverage.  

ButterflyCup

This Irish packaging innovator has been working on this brilliant idea for some time and looks like they have cracked it. It’s called a ButterflyCup, it’s 100% paper – there is no plastic coating – and nor is there a lid.

You form the lid by making folds after your drink is poured. It was developed by a pair of entrepreneurs in Ireland.

The promotional video below shows it being used in the wild.  Apparently it has been taken up by the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT), which operates centres across the UK, Columbia University in New York, and Burger King.