Why GREEN OLIVE is making sustainable bagasse coffee cup lids

Plastics have been deeply integrated into all aspects of our lives. The global annual plastic output has reached 370 million tons. Because of their good processing performance, performance and cost advantages, plastics are widely used in all walks of life, such as agriculture, packaging, and building decoration, It has become an indispensable and important material in many fields such as transportation, post, and telecommunications, electronic appliances, and daily necessities.

However, with the increasing use of plastic waste, especially disposable plastic products, which threatens the ecological environment, the recycling rate is low, which has caused serious pollution to the soil environment and the marine environment. At present, many countries and regions have launched actions to limit plastics and ban plastics, and their attitude towards plastics has also changed from plastic restrictions to plastic bans. In recent years, the research results of microplastics on human health and the environment are now widely known to the public, and there are more and more supporters of the plastic-free movement.

GREEN OLIVE has developed compostable coffee lids made from bagasse, a pulp made from sugar cane. Eco-friendly and sustainable snap-on coffee cup lids have been mass-produced and sold around the world.

Many fiber-based alternatives cannot withstand hot liquids and either deform or break down, which is not suitable for drinking coffee.

Through extensive research and development combined with our advanced manufacturing technology, we can transform natural materials such as bagasse (a pulp made from sugar cane) into our advanced environmentally sustainable snap-on lids.

Three advantages of bagasse coffee cup lids

1. Find the right fiber

It's not easy to develop a snap-on lid that can hold hot coffee, let alone make it compostable. It starts with considering why brands choose plastic: because it's cheap, convenient, and practical, he said.

Despite these qualities, we all have plastic lids that either leak or don't fit the cup at all. There's nothing more frustrating than that for a coffee drinker.

Our proprietary formula consists of a variety of natural fibers, depending on what can be sourced locally in an environmentally sustainable manner near our manufacturing facility.

These lids in particular are produced in China, so they are mostly made from bagasse (a pulp made from sugar cane), but we also use bamboo, agricultural waste, wheat, straw, cork, and other natural materials to make them Our advanced environmentally sustainable packaging.

The flexibility of the material enables it to expand our molded fiber solutions to global manufacturers, regardless of their available resources. "By choosing to produce our packaging from these fibers, we can significantly reduce our carbon footprint during production and disposal, while reusing natural materials that would otherwise be wasted."

2. Carbon reduction

How do fibrous lids compare to traditional plastic lids, which are "completely environmentally unsustainable and would have catastrophic consequences if we don't stop using single-use plastic." Plastic lids and single-use coffee cups can take dozens of It takes years to break down and release harmful microplastics that contaminate our food, water, and bodies.

Unlike plastics made from important materials such as coal, crude oil, and natural gas that are harmful to the environment and contribute to global warming, our solution is made from repurposed natural materials such as bagasse, which significantly reduces carbon in production emission.

From harvesting to production to disposal, our lids are committed to significantly reducing our carbon footprint and eliminating plastic waste throughout its lifecycle, while helping global brands meet their [environmental] sustainability commitments.

3. European coffee drinkers, the vast consumer market

Europe consumes more coffee than any other continent, resulting in excessive waste from plastic lids. The environmental sustainability solutions company says that in the UK alone, 2.5 billion coffee cups and lids are thrown away every year, but only 0.25% is recycled and the rest ends up in our landfills or Spill into our waterways.

Despite constant calls from regulators to reduce plastic waste, food brands cannot eliminate plastic from takeaway cups without viable alternatives. GREEN OLIVE is providing a solution with the launch of an environmentally sustainable snap-on coffee lid on a scale large enough to free Europe from single-use plastic lids.

As brands, we have a responsibility to prioritize our environmental impact in line with our bottom line; with our eco-friendly coffee lids, food brands can now do both.

Our bagasse coffee cup lids have the same premium feel and function that coffee drinkers have come to expect, and demonstrate what is possible when combining an environmentally sustainable mindset with world-class engineering and product design to make it a plastic cost-effective alternative.