Giant coffee cups are coming to Manchester city centre today as part of a campaign to help recycle 20,000 cups.

Environment charity Hubbub, in partnership with Manchester City Council and Groundwork, has launched the first high street recycling scheme for coffee cups. Over three months, the cups will be recycled into 15,000 plastic flower pot holders that will be used in community gardens around the city.

Nigel Murphy, executive member for neighbourhood services at Manchester City Council, said: ‘The council needs to find an alternative solution to prevent coffee cups from going to waste, and we know that the retailers have the same opinion. This new partnership will bring the coffee cup agenda to the Manchester public, and will result in real change, benefiting the local community at the same time.’

Figures show that the every year 2.5 billion paper coffee cups are being thrown away in the UK, with less than 1% being recycled.

If the #1MoreShot campaign is a success, the scheme will be rolled out across over local authority areas.

Gavin Ellis, co-founder of Hubbub, said: ‘This new initiative will test an innovative new technology and discover whether the public will separate out their coffee cups if specialist bins are provided. We urgently need to change the way we dispose of the 2.5 billion paper cups that are thrown away every year, as currently only one in 400 cups are being recycled.

'If this is successful, it can be extended to other cities across the UK as a number of local authorities have already put their name forward.’