Takeaway cup recycling made easier in Edinburgh with new dedicated cup bins in city centre

A new scheme has been launched offering an alternative to litter or landfill for Edinburgh’s growing number of takeaway coffee cups.

Cup Movement in Edinburgh has launched, making it easier for single-use takeaway cups to be recycled | Keep Scotland Beautiful

Environmental charity Keep Scotland Beautiful has partnered with the National Cup Recycling Scheme and Edinburgh Council to make recycling them easier across the city centre.

With only four per cent of cups currently being recycled in Scotland, the charity is looking for a way to boost this figure.

Dedicated cup bins will now be deployed on Market Street, Waverly Bridge and outside Haymarket Station to collect single-use cups in a new trial to test the effectiveness of on-street recycling.

The partners have also teamed up with retailers including Costa Coffee, Caffe Nero, Greggs and McDonald’s to launch Take It Back in Edinburgh.

This is the first time the charity’s Cup Movement campaign has been mobilised in the Capital – building on the success and learnings of previous trials in Glasgow and Dundee.

More than 30 stores in Edinburgh are participating in Take It Back, allowing customers to take a single-use cup back to any of the above retailers to be recycled.

Heather McLaughlin, Campaigns Manager at Keep Scotland Beautiful, said: “Single-use cups make up a huge percentage of the items polluting Scotland’s environment.

“More than half of people in Scotland often see littered single-use cups. In Edinburgh alone a recent bin audit of on-street bins outside Waverley Station found that single-use cups made up 59 per cent of the drinks waste.

“The reality is that these single-use products are already ending up as litter. We need to address our over consumption of single-use products and make an effort to choose reusable options.

“However, we know that reuse is not always possible or practical. This scheme will make it easier for people who use single-use cups to ensure they are recycled properly.”

Hannah Osman, National Cup Recycling Manager at Valpak Ltd, said: “Transport hubs are some of the highest footfall locations in Scotland, and we know from our data that a significant volume of single-use cups are consumed on the go.

“By targeting key commuter routes, this trial allows us to test how dedicated infrastructure in the right locations can capture more material and significantly increase recycling rates.

“Through this partnership, we’re using real-time data and evidence from previous trials to understand what works, measure contamination levels, track capture rates, and build a scalable model for on-street cup recycling.”

Coffee cups can be dropped off in dedicated bins across the city. | Keep Scotland Beautiful

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Councillor Stephen Jenkinson, Edinburgh Council’s Environment Convener, said: “Increasing recycling rates in the city is one of our key priorities. It’s important we support targeted projects like this to make it easier for people to dispose of takeaway cups, which have become so popular in recent years and the prominent locations of these three new dedicated bins will hopefully do that.

“I’d also always encourage residents and visitors buying a regular cuppa to take their own cup into takeaway stores wherever possible to cut down on the need to use the disposable ones at all.”

Typical single-use hot drink cups cannot go into standard recycling bins or be recycled at home. To avoid cups ending up in landfill, it is really important to #TakeItBack.

Participating Edinburgh stores can be found on this interactive map.