Four Japanese companies have launched an initiative to jointly collect paper cups used in their stores and recycle them as paper towels!
Oji Holdings Corporation, McDonald's Japan Corporation, Kentucky Fried Chicken Japan Corporation, and Tully's Coffee Japan Corporation have been working together on this initiative, which officially started on January 30, 2025.
Currently the following three stores are doing the collection:
☆ McDonald's Asakusa
☆ Kentucky Fried Chicken Asakusa
☆ Tully's Coffee Asakusa Shin-nakamise
[Flow of collection]
＊Stores - Collect and sort used paper cups
＊Raw materials - Crushed and washed at facility
＊Recycle - Turned into paper towels at facility
＊Utilization - Paper towels are used in stores
Paper cups are often laminated with plastic to make them water-resistant, so it is not possible to recycle them and therefore are mostly incinerated. It is a good initiative to be able to recycle existing paper cups this way but of course, I would also like to see the company focus on initiatives that allow reuse without recycling.
The companies plan to gradually expand the scope of this joint collection. I hope to see a choice of both reuse and recycling at every store, and would love to see more and more movement toward a future where there is nothing to be incinerated. For this to happen, we, as consumers, should also speak up!
Source：https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000475.000020545.html (in Japanese)
