UK Government denies plans to tax coffee cups

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has said that Rory Stewart, one of its own ministers, was wrong to suggest that a tax might be levied on coffee cups to help combat the fact that so few are recycled; The Times revealed this week that just one in every 400 cups is recycled each year. Britain’s largest coffee chains, including Starbucks, Costa, Pret and Caffè Nero, were also accused of misleading customers about the environmentally-friendly nature of their cups. Coffee cups are difficult to recycle due to their polyethylene lining. Stewart said that cups could be the next consumer item to face a levy after the introduction of the 5p charge on plastic bags. However, DEFRA denied such a tax was planned.  

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has said there are no plans for a tax on disposable coffee cups, after one of its ministers suggested such a tax would be a good thing to look at.

Rory Stewart made the remarks in the House of Commons after it was revealed that just one in 400 coffee cups are recycled each year.

The environment minister pointed to the success of the 5p charge on plastic bags and said non-recyclable coffee cups could be the next consumer item to face such a levy. But within hours he was contradicted by a spokesman for Defra, who said there were no plans to create a new tax.

Britain’s biggest coffee chains, including Starbucks, Costa, Caffè Nero and Pret, were accused this week of making misleading claims about recycling that led to consumers falsely believing their cups were environmentally friendly.

Seven million paper coffee cups are used in Britain each day, amounting to 2.5bn a year. They are difficult to recycle because of a polyethylene lining on the inside which stops the cardboard going soggy.

Labour MP Rob Marris asked Stewart in the Commons: “Could the government have a look at the problem of the wretched number of plastic-lined paper takeaway coffee cups, the overwhelming majority of which never get recycled because of the difficulties of ripping out the plastic lining of the paper? It’s a huge problem.”

Stewart responded: “I absolutely agree. It’s a huge problem and there are tens of millions of these things being produced and thrown away.

“As you have pointed out, many of these things cannot be recycled either by the way they’re disposed or because of the composition of the cup.

“Having tackled plastic bags, which I hope everybody in the house would agree the plastic bag tax has been a success, coffee cups seem to be a very good thing to look at next.”

Marris subsequently told the Press Association: “I am pleased with the response from the minister. I hope the government will make this a priority in the near future because I suspect a lot of consumers are inadvertently being misled.

“My initial reaction is charging 5p or 10p for the cup will not work – it will not encourage people to take their own cups in if a coffee goes up from £1.90 to £1.95.

“I suspect a more technological answer is what we need – either the composition of the disposable cups being changed so they’re more easily recyclable, as it’s quite a palaver at the moment, or changing the technology in the recycling.”

Hours later a government spokesman told reporters that “while [Stewart] acknowledged more needs to be done to recycle coffee cups there are no plans to tax them”.

Although Stewart referred to a plastic bag tax, the 5p supermarket customers have had to pay on bags in England since last October is in fact a charge, with the revenues going to charity rather than the state.