A paper cup is a disposable
cup made out of paper and often line
or coated with plastic or wax to prevent liquid from leaking out or soaking through the paper. It may be made of recycled paper and is widely used around the world.
or coated with plastic or wax to prevent liquid from leaking out or soaking through the paper. It may be made of recycled paper and is widely used around the world.
Paper
cups have been documented in imperial China, where paper was invented by 2nd
century BC. Paper cups were known as chih
pei and were used for the serving of tea. They were constructed in different sizes and colors, and
were adorned with decorative designs. Textual evidence of paper cups appears in
a description of the possessions of the Yu family, from the city of Hangzhou.
The
modern paper cup was developed in the 20th century. In the early 20th century,
it was common to have shared glasses or dippers at water sources such as school
faucets or water barrels in trains. This shared use caused public health
concerns. One notable investigation into their use was the study by Alvin
Davison, biology professor at Lafayette
College, published with the sensational title "Death in School Drinking
Cups" in Technical
World Magazine in August 1908, based on
research carried out in Easton, Pennsylvania's public schools. The article was
reprinted and distributed by the Massachusetts State Board of Health in
November 1909.
Based
on these concerns, and as paper goods (especially after the 1908 invention of
the Dixie Cup) became cheaply and cleanly available, local bans were passed on
the shared-use cup. One of the first railway companies to use disposable paper
cups was the Lackawanna Railroad, which began using them in 1909. By
1917, the public glass had disappeared from railway carriages, replaced by
paper cups even in jurisdictions where public glasses had yet to be banned.
Paper
cups are also employed in hospitals for health reasons. In 1942 the
Massachusetts State College found in one study that the cost of using washable
glasses, re-used after being sanitized, was 1.6 times the cost of using
single-service paper cups. These studies, as well
as the reduction in the risk of cross-infection, encouraged the use of paper
cups in hospitals.
Paper cup making machine
Waterproofing
Originally, paper cups
for hot drinks were glued together and made waterproof by dropping a small
amount of clay in the bottom of the cup, and then spinning at high speed so
that clay would travel up the walls of the cup, making the paper
water-resistant. However, this resulted in drinks smelling and tasting of
cardboard.
Cups for cold drinks
could not be treated in the same way, as condensation forms on the outside,
then soaks into the board, making the cup unstable. To remedy this, cup
manufacturers developed the technique of spraying both the inside and outside
of the cup with wax. Clay- and wax-coated cups disappeared with the invention
of polyethylene (PE)-coated cups; this process covers the surface of the
board with a very thin layer of PE, waterproofing the board and welding the
seams together.
In 2017, the Finnish
board manufacturer Kotkamills launched
a new kind of cup (food service) board which uses no wax or plastic for
waterproofing, and thus can be recycled as part of the normal paper and board
waste stream, biodegraded, or even composted in small quantities.
Printing
on paper cups
Originally paper cups were printed using rubber blocks mounted on
cylinders, with a different cylinder for each colour. Registration across
different colours was very difficult, but later flexography plates became available and with the use of mounting systems it became
easier to register across the colours, allowing for more complex designs.
Printing flexographic has become ideal for long runs and manufacturers
generally use this method when producing over a million cups. Machines such as Comexi are used for this, which have been adapted to take the extra large reels
that are required by paper cup manufacturers. Ink technology has also changed
and where solvent-based inks were being used,
water-based inks are instead being utilised. One of the side effects of
solvent-based inks is that hot drink cups in particular can smell of solvent,
whereas water-based inks have eliminated this problem. Other methods of
printing have been used for short runs such as offset printing, which can vary from
anything from 10,000 to 100,000 cups. Offset printing inks have also been
developed and although in the past these were solvent based, the latest soya-based inks have reduced the danger of cups smelling. The latest development is Direct-printing, which allows
printing on very small quantities, typically from 1,000 cups, and is used by
companies including Brendos ltd offering small quantities in short lead times. Rotogravure can also be used, but this is extremely expensive and is normally only
utilised for items requiring extremely high quality printing like ice cream
containers.
Recycling
Most paper cups are
designed for a single use and then disposal. Very little recycled paper is used to make paper cups because of contamination
concerns and regulations. Since most paper cups are coated with plastic (polyethylene), then both composting and recycling of
paper cups is uncommon because of the difficulty in separating the polyethylene
in the recycling process of said cups. As of 2016, there are only two facilities
in the UK able to properly recycle PE-coated cups; in the absence
of such facilities, the cups are taken to landfill or incinerated.
A UK-based business
group James Cropper have developed the world’s first facility for the
effective recycling of the estimated 2.5 billion paper coffee cups used and
disposed of by British businesses each year, and have become one of 14
international companies to formally join the Paper Recovery
and Recycling Group (PCRRG).
James Cropper's
Reclaimed Fibre Facility was opened by HM The Queen in July 2013, and recovers
both the plastic and paper from the cups; ensuring nothing is wasted from the
recycling process. Although paper cups are made from renewable resources (wood
chips 95% by weight), paper products in a landfill might not decompose, or can
release methane, if decomposed anaerobically.
A Newport Beach, CA company, Smart Planet Technologies has developed a
process for modifying the polyethylene coating on paper cups and folding
cartons so they are engineered for recyclability. Orange
Coast College in Costa
Mesa, CA has
begun a program to use cups made with this technology to capture and sell the
fibers to fund scholarships for their students.
In 2017, the Finnish
board manufacturer Kotkamills launched
a new kind of cup (food service) board which uses no wax or plastic for
waterproofing, and thus can be recycled as part of the normal paper and board
waste stream, biodegraded, or even composted in small quantities.
The manufacture of paper
usually requires inorganic
chemicals and
creates water effluents. Paper cups may consume more non-renewable resources
than cups made of polystyrene foam (whose only significant effluent is pentane).
Paper
vs plastic
A life
cycle inventory of a
comparison of paper vs plastic cups shows environmental effects of both with no
clear winner.
Polyethylene (PE) is a petroleum-based coating on paper cups that can
slow down the process of biodegrading of the paper it coats.
Polylactic acid (PLA) is a biodegradable
bio-plastic coating
used on some paper cups. PLA is a renewable
resource and
is certified compostable, which means that when it biodegrades, it does not
leave behind any toxic residues. Although PLA-lined cups are the only paper
cups which can be composted fully, they can contaminate the waste stream,
reportedly making other recycled plastics unsaleable.
All paper cups can only
be recycled at a specialised treatment facility regardless of the lining.
A number of cities –
including Portland, Oregon — have banned XPS
foam cups
in take-out and fast food restaurants.
Emissions
A study of one paper
coffee cup with sleeve (16 ounce) shows that the CO2 emissions is about 0.11 kilograms (0.24 lb) per cup with
sleeve – including paper from trees, materials, production
and shipping.
Habitat-loss
trees used
The habitat loss from one 16 ounce paper coffee cup with a sleeve is
estimated to be 0.09 square meters (0.93 square feet). Over 6.5 million trees
were cut down to make 16 billion paper coffee cups used by U.S. in 2006, using
4 billion US gallons (15,000,000 m3) of water and resulting in 253 million
pounds (115,000,000 kg) of waste. Overall, US Americans use 58% of all
paper cups worldwide, amounting to 130 billion cups.
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