Project Overview

Coffee drinkers want a cup which they feel will contribute to waste reduction, while still keeping the convenience and great feeling of drinking coffee on the go. So far, it has been difficult to find a solution that is both pleasant to use and environmentally friendly.

Unocup achieves this through a well-tested folding design to create its own lid as an integrated top. The cup is a breeze to fold, hold, drink from, and reopen. The foldable top allows for less spillage, and sturdier holding - no need to worry about the lid popping off or the cup breaking away when held from the above.

Organisation

Unocups

Team

Tom Chan & Kaanur Papo

Project Innovation/Need

At an estimated 4 million coffee lids a day, NYC alone uses about 1.5 billion lids a year - enough to create a trail of lids 3.5X the length of Earth’s circumference. With Unocup, the entire cup life cycle becomes more streamlined and sustainable. Collecting used paper cups becomes easier since customers will no longer need to deposit lids and cups into two different collection bins. Users won’t need to fiddle and look for a lid, or worry about using one or not, therefore creating a more comfortable drinking experience.
Lids do not need to be manufactured, stored, or transported, therefore saving on energy, materials, and time.

Design Challenge

In 2015, inspired by the amount of trash brought by our daily coffee consumption, Co-founder Tom Chan came up with an idea for a new paper coffee cup that eliminates plastic lids through a foldable top. In 2019, Tom and Kaanur Papo, both longtime friends, decided to work together on making the cup become a reality.

Hundreds of prototypes later, and with the help of peers and mentors - they arrived at the perfect lid-free paper cup, and Unocup was created. Unocup’s design maximizes ease of folding for customers and baristas, spill proofing, cost-saving, manufacturability, and has a sleek modern look.

Due to Unocup’s integrated top, businesses will benefit from significant cost savings since there is no need to manufacture, store, or ship plastic lids.
Its one-piece structure is optimized for mass-production using existing traditional cup-making machines.

Sustainability

Unocup received $100,000 from an international sustainability award, the New Plastics Economy Innovation Prize and envisions a future where plastic lids are eliminated for good, preventing them from littering the earth and entering our oceans.

Tags

• Elevate
• ElevateNYC