Every two minutes, people in the United Kingdom go through 10,000 coffee cups. However, what most do not realize is that these paper coffee cups are not recyclable. While most consumers assume that the paper cups are the more eco-friendly choice, most end up in landfills. Because the cups are not made from recyclable material, and they come in contact with the hot coffee or tea, they cannot be put with standard recycling. Technically, because the cups are lined with polyethylene, they can be recycled in a specialty recycling facility, but only two of these exist in the whole United Kingdom. More than that, these facilities have very rarely handled such cups. Each year, in the UK alone, 2.5 billion used coffee cups are thrown in the trash.