A British nonprofit called Hubbub is conducting an experiment in the town of Manchester to see if more of the one percent of the 2.5 billion paper cups used and discarded in the United Kingdom could instead be recycled. The recycling innovation effort is being backed by a number of businesses along Oxford Road in the British city.

The effort involved deploying 11 large recycling bins along the road where passersby can dispose of their used paper cups. The second part of the effort is a new recycling technology that does not require the removal of plastic from the inside of the cups before they are processed. Instead, 40 percent of the material in the cups is shredded, mixed in with other recycled plastic, and then melted down into pellets. The pellets are then used to make plastic flower pot holders.

Another method for recycling coffee cups into useful items involves a new process that combines paper with plastic to create a durable resin. Paper cups in the UK are made of paper with some plastic inside to make them waterproof. The new process, developed by Dr. Edward Kosior of Brunel University London’s Wolfson Centre for Materials Processing and Dr. John Mitchell of London’s Imperial College makes a material that can be recycled much like wood products are.

The idea is that cups made of the resin can be made into products that are made of wood, such as trays and tabletops. Cups made of the new material have been rolled out in coffee shops in London since the summer of 2016.