Should paper coffee cups come with a recycling fee?

A Vancouver group thinks it may have a solution to the problem of litter and waste caused by the 1.6 billion disposalcoffee cups that getthrown out in Canada every year.

Anna Godefroy of the Binners Project, a group that picks up recyclables and returns them for cash,believescoffee drinkersshould be charged a cuprecycling fee every time they purchase alatte or double-doublein a paper cup. The scheme would work exactly the same wayas it does forcans and bottles.

• The BinnersProject
• Coffee cups recycled for 5-cent refund in Vancouver

"We're thinking for coffee cups it could be fiveor tencents," says Godefroy."It would helpreduce waste and also invites people to think twice before ordering a coffee to go."

Lindsay Coulter of theSuzukiFoundation agrees the plan could be a way to get people out of the paper cup habit.

"It's supposed to be reduce use, then reuse, then recycle," said Coulter, adding that just because you can put paper cups in your blue bin, doesn't mean they'renot ending up in the landfill.

In 2014 the Binners Project stageda one-day public event called "The Coffee Cup Revolution,"offering a nickle for every disposable cup that was turned in. In a five-hour span, 45,000 cups were collected.

Paul Henderson, Metro Vancouver's manager for solid waste, says that paper cup usage around Vancouver needs to be reduced.

"We'd like to see less cups used around the region," Henderson told CBC.

If Vancouverwere to adopt thepaper cup recycling fee scheme, it would be the first jurisdiction in the world to do so.