TFC Recycling now accepting paper cups in residential recycling

More than 600,000 households in Virginia can recycle clear and dry paper cups along with other accepted curbside items.

TFC Recycling, a Chesapeake, Virginia-based residential recycling company, has announced it will use new artificial-intelligence-based optical sorting technology to be able to add paper cups to its residential recycling programs.

According to a report from WAVY, the sorting equipment and paper cup recycling initiative was made possible through a grant from the Falls Church, Virginia-based Foodservice Packaging Institute (FPI) and NextGen Consortium, a multiyear consortium managed by New York-based Closed Loop Partners that addresses single-use foodservice packaging.

“TFC Recycling is proud to expand and improve our recycling capabilities, giving our customers in the Hampton Roads region the opportunity to recycle paper cups,” TFC Recycling owner and President Michael Benedetto tells WAVY. “This initiative aligns with our broader Smart Start Recycle Right campaign and our commitment to real recycling.”

A communications grant from FPI will fund the educational component TFC’s paper cup recycling initiative, which aims to raise awareness about proper paper cup recycling practices, including discarding lids in the trash and ensuring cups are clean and empty before recycling.

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“By expanding its paper cup recycling program, TFC Recycling is making a real impact in the Hampton Roads region,” FPI President Natha Dempsey tells WAVY. “Reaching half a million households is a significant step forward in recovering more paper cups and other foodservice packaging, and we hope this effort inspires other communities around the Tidewater area to follow suit.”

TFC says the paper cups collected will be packed with other paper products and containers at its material recovery facility in Chesapeake and then sent to paper mills.

The company is one of Virginia’s largest residential curbside recyclers, providing services to 17 municipalities, including 600,000 households and more than 4,000 commercial customers in Virginia and North Carolina. It has more than 400 employees and 180 collection and transfer vehicles.