April 23, 2025

Atlanta – Georgia-Pacific’s Savannah River mill in Rincon, Georgia, now accepts polyethylene (PE)-coated paper cups in its mixed paper stock for recycling.

It’s the third Georgia-Pacific facility to begin accepting PE-coated cups, joining recycled paper mills in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Muskogee, Oklahoma. These facilities enable the reuse of fibers from PE-coated cups and other mixed paper stock to produce Georgia-Pacific products such as tissues, towels and napkins.

Georgia-Pacific has partnered closely with the Foodservice Packaging Institute (FPI) and the NextGen Consortium, an industry collaboration managed by Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy, to promote and expand the acceptance of PE-coated cups for recycling.

“As single-use paper cups have grown in popularity in recent years so, too, has paper cup waste,” said John Mulcahy, vice president of stewardship for Georgia-Pacific, which manufactures the Dixie® brand of paper cups. “As a leading manufacturer of paper foodservice products, we continually look for ways to consume fewer resources as part of our longer-term strategy to identify solutions that benefit society. Accepting mixed paper bales containing PE-coated cups at our mills is a significant step in this direction.”

PE coatings, along with any remaining liquid and food left behind from use, have historically left single-use paper cups out of the recovery and recycling process. However, Georgia-Pacific has proven through its extensive re-pulping trials that these mills can effectively recapture valuable cup fiber from paper cups while screening out PE coatings and then reuse the fiber to make bath tissue, napkins and paper towels.

Kate Daly, managing partner and head of the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners, said Georgia-Pacific’s repulping capability will benefit the foodservice industry and further advance the industry’s environmental stewardship.

“We are excited see Georgia-Pacific continue to accelerate paper cup recycling through its acceptance of cups in mixed paper bales at the Savannah River mill,” Daly said. “There has been tremendous momentum in paper cup recycling over the last several years. This announcement marks another critical step forward for the industry, and we hope even more mills will follow this lead. Georgia-Pacific’s actions and commitment to expanding cup recycling across their portfolio reinforces the value of the materials in paper cups and builds critical markets for these recycled materials. As the managing partner of the NextGen Consortium, Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy continues to collaborate with leaders like Georgia-Pacific and stakeholders across the cup value chain, to keep these valuable materials in play.”

Georgia-Pacific is also collaborating with the NextGen Consortium to trial at its mills next-generation paper cups that have replaced the PE-coating with more bio-based materials that are recyclable and/or compostable.

And with its Rincon, Green Bay and Muskogee mills now engaged, Georgia-Pacific is also working with FPI to expand and accelerate single-use PE-coated paper cup acceptance in curbside recycling programs to increase the number of households that can recycle the paper cups. As the voice of the foodservice packaging industry, FPI is committed to reducing the impact of its products on the environment and to advancing recycling and composting.

“We’re proud to work with Georgia-Pacific in its effort to recover and reuse poly-coated paper cups,” said Natha Dempsey, president of FPI, “and we look forward to partnering with new communities that previously didn’t have the capability to recycle them.”