UK to introduce 25p ‘latte charge’ on disposable coffee cups

In what has come to be known as the 'latte tax', Britain's MPs are calling for a 25p charge on takeaway coffee, with the ultimate goal of banning disposable cups in five years' time.

A report by the parliamentary environmental audit committee says the tax should be used to improve the UK's recycling and reprocessing facilities.

The MPs say throwaway cups should be prohibited altogether by 2023 if they are not all being recycled.

In the UK 2.5 billion takeaway coffee cups are used and thrown away each year – enough to stretch around the world five and a half times. The UK produces 30,000 tonnes of coffee cup waste each year, according to a report published by MPs on the EAC on Friday.

Disposable cups cannot be recycled by the normal systems because they are made from cardboard with a tightly bonded polyethylene liner, which is difficult to remove, and means they are not accepted by paper mills.

As a result just one in 400 cups are recycled – less than 0.25 per cent. Half a million coffee cups are littered each day in the UK, the report said.

The MPs are also calling for coffee chains to pay more towards disposing of cups, and improved labelling to better educate consumers

Labour MP Mary Creagh, chair of the committee said, ''Coffee cup producers and distributors have not taken action to rectify this and the government has sat on its hands.''

Only two of the major coffee chains gave evidence to MPs inquiry, while others refused to engage. ''Their silence speaks volumes,'' MPs said.

However, in response, Starbucks said it would try out a 5p cup charge in 20 to 25 central London outlets.

"We will begin the trial in February and initially it will last for three months," the firm said, adding that it continued to offer a 25p discount to customers who brought their own reusable cups.

The EAC report said, ''There is no excuse for the ongoing reluctance from government and industry to address coffee cup waste. Disposable coffee cups are an avoidable waste problem and if the UK cannot be confident of their future sustainability, the government should ban them.''

Some coffee shop chains – Starbucks and Costa – had shown initiative in introducing on-site recycling bins for cups, which they then sent to one of three specialist recycling facilities. These were ''well meaning'', MPs said, but not enough to tackle the scale of cup waste in the UK. Other efforts were ''inconsistent and need targets'' to be imposed by the government.

The Liberal Democrats said they had been campaigning for a charge on coffee cups since September 2016 and were the only party to include the policy in their 2017 election manifesto.

The party's environment spokesman, Tim Farron, said, "I'm glad our call for a coffee cup charge is gaining traction.

"The evidence is clear that these levies work - the 5p charge on plastic bags has massively reduced usage and helped protect our environment."

 The committee said coffee chains perpetuated customer confusion that cups are widely recyclable when they are not.

''It is unacceptable that coffee sellers are perpetuating customer confusion though their use of recycling labels and emphasis on the recyclability of coffee cups, despite the shockingly low recycling rate,'' the report said. ''Those without in-store recycling should print their cups with a not widely recyclable label.''

The charge could lead to a reduction in the use of disposable cups of between 50-300 million per year, according to evidence submitted to MPs.