James Cropper Supports Ellen MacArthur Foundation

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy initiative has rallied businesses and governments behind a positive vision of a circular economy for plastics. Its 2016 and 2017 New Plastics Economy reports captured worldwide headlines, revealing the financial and environmental costs of waste plastic and pollution.
Supporting a New Plastics Economy
James Cropper were amongst the first 250 companies to become a signatory to the new Global Commitment. There are now more than 850 companies and retailers who have committed to increase recycled content in their packaging to an average of 25% by 2025.
As a supplier to the packaging industry, James Cropper has signed up and specifically committed to support the Global Commitment by;
- Supporting customers to eliminate problematic or unnecessary plastic packaging through the supply of ColourformTM plastic free packaging and other paper alternatives.
- Increasing our capacity for CupCyclingTM (upcycling of paper cups) by working together with retailers, waste management companies, and other stakeholders to increase the collection and supply of used cups to our facility. We will also continue to work with our customer base to generate demand for the resulting recycled fibres.
- Sending all plastic recovered during the CupCyclingTM process for recycling or re-use by 2025.
Activities and progress made against our commitments:
- Our COLOURFORM moulded fibre proposition, has provided environmental alternatives to single-use plastics for health and beauty brands Mondays, LUSH and L’Oreal, and also a contemporary new eco-responsible packaging for the champagne house Maison Ruinart.
- We make beautiful papers with CupCyclingTM fibre for retail brands such as Selfridges, Burberry and renowned stationer Hallmark Cards. In fact, 150 million coffee cups have been upcycled at our facility to date, and millions more cups are destined to be upcycled through initiatives such as the CupFund aimed at kickstarting cup recycling projects in association with environmental charity Hubbub and Starbucks.
- 95% of cup waste is converted back in to paper and the remaining 5% of plastic is currently used for energy recovery in the production of recycled paper.
The Global Commitment established a vision to stop plastic waste and pollution at source by applying circular economy principles.
Find out more about the Global Commitment.