Food and beverage giants McDonald’s and Starbucks might be rivals, but the two companies have decided to come together for developing sustainable cups that would be fully recyclable and compostable. It is estimated that around\u00a0600 billion paper and plastic cups are produced by the food service industry globally that end up in landfills every year.<\/p>\n
In March, Starbucks invested in the Closed Loop Partners\u2019 Center for the Circular Economy to create the NextGen Cup Challenge, an industry consortium for developing sustainable cups. Recently McDonald\u2019s signed on with $5 million, bringing the total funds dedicated to the Challenge to $10 million, according to the two companies.<\/p>\n
The NextGen Cup Challenge\u00a0invites innovators, entrepreneurs, industry experts, and recyclers to submit ideas for the next generation of cups that are recyclable or compostable, or both, starting in September.<\/p>\n
Awardees will receive acceleration funding up to $1 million based on key milestones, the consortium notes. After that, up to seven awardees will enter a six-month accelerator program to help scale their solutions.<\/p>\n