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By 2018, the world was consuming single-use fiber cups at an unprecedented rate: hundreds of billions were used each year, with less than 1% recycled. Recognizing the need for collaboration across brands, cup manufacturers, recyclers and communities to identify and scale innovative alternatives, the Closed Loop Center built a consortium focused on solving this challenge collectively.
households can now recycle paper cups
in infrastructure grants delivered to support fiber and PP cup recovery
recycling tests conducted with innovative cup materials
consumers studied through surveys, focus groups, intercepts
The NextGen Consortium launched in 2018 with support from founding members Starbucks and McDonald's, joined by The Coca-Cola Company, Yum! Brands, Nestlé, and Wendy's — an unprecedented coalition of brands working together to solve a shared pain point and unlock business and environmental value. Our first initiative was a global innovation challenge designed to identify, evaluate and elevate recoverable alternatives to the single-use fiber cup. The challenge garnered significant attention and we received more than 500 entries and selected 12 winners focused on new materials and reusable service models. Putting the innovation challenge insights into practice, we launched a reusable cup pilot scheme in California's Bay Area, which allowed us to test solutions in real-world settings with global brands and independent businesses.
In the first two years of the Consortium, two major principles emerged to guide our work in the years to come. First, we saw that the collaborative approach of the multi-brand consortium became even more effective when partnering with local government — especially at the city level, where decisions on waste and recovery are often made. This insight paved the way for our groundbreaking work with cities, including the first citywide reusable cup program in the U.S. Second, as we pressure-tested cup alternatives, we started to pressure-test the industry perception that standard cups are hard to recycle. This led us to work closely with end markets to test what needs to be true for paper mills to accept paper cups, which would drive higher acceptance rates at materials recovery facilities (MRFs). This engagement alongside collaboration with key industry partners resulted in a significant uptick in fiber cup acceptance across the U.S.
The NextGen Consortium has helped participating businesses make huge strides on single-use packaging by building reuse systems, testing material alternatives in market, and growing recycling acceptance of cups nationwide. A second phase of the Consortium launched in 2021, when we welcomed PepsiCo and Peets JDE to the group. In 2024 we announced a third phase, with an expanded coalition including Avery Denison, Delta Airlines, Keurig Dr Pepper and Toast.
NextGen projects have been recognized globally for tackling complex challenges that no single business can solve on its own. Our methodology has inspired similar approaches to other material challenges. The Consortium is evidence that when we pool the resources of participating companies and incorporate their diverse perspectives in the design and testing of new systems, we move everyone closer to scalable solutions.
We are part of Closed Loop Partners—which includes the largest privately held recycling company in the U.S. and one of the largest circular economy capital management groups in the world—we’re uniquely positioned to bring research, design, and real-world implementation together.
