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Dunkin’ Donuts to eliminate foam cups worldwide by 2020Dunkin’ Donuts to eliminate foam cups worldwide by 2020

Double-walled paper cups will be phased into U.S. restaurants beginning this spring.

Clare Goldsberry

February 13, 2018

6 Min Read
Dunkin’ Donuts to eliminate foam cups worldwide by 2020

Next up to eliminate expanded polystyrene (EPS) drink cups from its chain of fast-food restaurants is Dunkin’ Donuts. The company will eliminate all EPS foam cups in its global supply chain beginning this spring with a targeted completion date of 2020.

Image courtesy m01229/flickr.

In U.S. restaurants, Dunkin’ Donuts will replace the foam cup with a new, double-walled paper cup. The majority of its restaurants in international markets are currently using paper cups, and the brand will work with its franchisees to eliminate foam cups from remaining international markets by the 2020 goal, said the company’s information.

Behind the effort to eliminate EPS foam cups was—you guessed it—As You Sow, an advocacy group that goes after plastics with a vengeance. It started a campaign several years ago to get Dunkin’ Donuts to replace EPS foam cups with another material, “as part of a larger dialogue on recycling beverage cups at its restaurant locations,” said a release from As You Sow.

As You Sow also noted, however, that it was surprised that Dunkin’ chose paper, as the company previously indicated that it “was leaning toward a polypropylene plastic cup as ‘currently the best available alternative to foam’ and [was] already using polypropylene in areas that had banned foam.”

For recycling purposes, the PP cups would have been a good choice. Even with double-walled paper, hot coffee might make the cup too hot to handle. Many restaurant chains that have switched to paper cups also must use a paperboard sleeve to protect customers’ hands from the heat. I’m thinking of the extra energy and the tremendous amount of water it takes to make paper cups and the paperboard sleeves, and I wonder just how much research Dunkin’ did before making this decision.

In March 2014, Good Start Packaging performed tests on single- and double-wall paper cups to see if they had the same insulative value of foam. Ken Jacobus, CEO of Good Start Packaging, noted that double-walled cups are made by manufacturing two paper walls with an insulating air pocket between them. “Some manufacturers have claimed using a double-walled cup avoids the need for a sleeve and keeps drinks hotter longer.” Because the double-walled cups cost about $0.06 more than a regular cup, Jacobus wanted to make sure that the value of the double-wall cup was worth the cost. If companies need to add a sleeve in addition to the double-wall cup, that adds another $0.05 to the cost.

Good Start performed a laboratory experiment using two cups. Cup 1 was a 12-oz. single-wall hot cup and lid and cup 2 was a 12-oz. double-wall hot cup and lid. Both were made by World Centric, Good Start’s brand, and the testers used a laser thermometer to measure the temperature of the cup’s outer wall and an “old fashioned liquid thermometer” to measure the temperature of the coffee. The coffee was served at 180° F.

After pouring in the coffee and letting it sit for a minute, the laser thermometer showed the outside temperature of cup #1 (single wall) to be 179° F, virtually the same as the inside. “This makes sense: Paper is a poor insulator,” said Jacobus. “This cup was very uncomfortable to hold; we found that a temperature of 150 to 160° is about the maximum temperature at which one could comfortably hold a cup of coffee without using a sleeve. The surface area of a sleeve on a cup is a comfortable 130° by comparison.”

The surface area of the double-wall cup was exactly 10° less than the single-wall cup. “This was actually bearable to hold but we had hoped for a lower temperature,” said Jacobus.

After 10 minutes, both cups had cooled to a nearly identical 160° inside, indicating that the double-wall cup wasn’t really making a difference in maintaining temperature over time. “So, for those of you who like to savor your coffee for a long time, we hope you’re okay with luke-warm because the double wall didn’t seem to keep it hotter,” concluded Jacobus, adding that the results of the testing didn’t seem to offer a compelling reason for using a double-wall over a single-wall cup.

Good Start makes both single- and double-wall cups in its World Centric and Eco-Products brands. The company’s cups are compostable, as Good Start’s goal is to reduce the use of disposable plastic.

Jacobus’ objective was to provide proof that there wasn’t much benefit to using double-wall cups over single-wall cups. While he didn’t test EPS foam (because plastic is not in his wheelhouse), compostability is key. Some composting facilities won’t take paper, and some won’t take paper that has been whitened with chlorine. Additionally, some paper cups are coated with plastic, which would also not be compostable. So it really depends on the composting facility and the method used by the individual composting facilities as to whether or not the new Dunkin’ cups can be composted. I’ve contacted Dunkin’ about the cups they are planning to use and if they are going for compostability or recyclability. No answer yet.

At the website www.foamfacts.com there is a comparison of EPS foam versus paper cups, which notes the insulation benefits of foam cups. Some people use two paper cups together to better insulate the hot drink and protect their hands. “Double-cupping an average-weight polyethylene-coated paperboard cup results in over twice as much solid waste by volume, over five times as much solid waste by weight and nearly twice as much greenhouse gas-emissions as the use of a single, average-weight EPS foam cup,” said the site’s information.

Additionally, the site noted that “a soft drink in a foam cup will still have more carbonation in it after 15 minutes than the same drink in a paper cup after two minutes. A hot drink in a plastic-lined paper cup will have lost twice as much heat as the same drink in a foam cup after 10 minutes.”

The primary problem with companies like Dunkin’ and McDonald’s in their attempts to look green is that they never take into consideration the initial manufacturing of the product. “All manufacturing processes have environmental consequences, just as all living creatures contribute, however minimally, to environmental degradation,” said Foam Facts. “The real answer on environmental impact comes from a comparative analysis with suitable alternative manufacturing processes.”

I’m not surprised that Dunkin’ would not respond to my questions, since As You Sow can make life miserable for these big corporations that won’t comply with their pressure to get rid of plastic, even though paper has its environmental impact, as well, and probably much more in the long run. 

About the Author

Clare Goldsberry

Until she retired in September 2021, Clare Goldsberry reported on the plastics industry for more than 30 years. In addition to the 10,000+ articles she has written, by her own estimation, she is the author of several books, including The Business of Injection Molding: How to succeed as a custom molder and Purchasing Injection Molds: A buyers guide. Goldsberry is a member of the Plastics Pioneers Association. She reflected on her long career in "Time to Say Good-Bye."

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