The N-viro cups developed by Mars Drinks for use in its Flavia drinks machines form part of the group's Thirsty for Change initiative to help businesses reduce waste and energy use.
Most hot vending cups have oil-based plastic linings to prevent leakage, which are hard to recycle and are a wasteful use of fossil fuels.
Described as the first compostable cup manufactured in the UK, N-viro replaces this with a bio-plastic, corn-derived lining to create a paper-board cup made from sustainable sources managed by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative.
Mars has set up a collection scheme with the not-for-profit Save-a-Cup scheme that takes the used cups to industrial composting facilities to be broken down for use on farms.
Save-a-Cup also collects the multi-laminated Flavia filterpacks (which cannot be recycled) to be burnt in energy plants for conversion into electricity.
The group, which has dedicated 20% of its research and development budget to sustainability, hopes to find a way to recycle multi-laminate packaging by 2010.
To buy it, call
Mars Drinks0800 032 3444