Only in the caffeine consumer community in New York City, 1.1 million pounds of disposable food plastics (including hot drink plastic lids) are consumed each year. The world produces 300 million tons of plastic waste every year, and 8 million tons of plastic waste is discharged into the ocean every year.
In 2015, Tom Chan, a second-year student at Cooper Union College, developed Unocup, a paper cup that prevents spills and collapsible in the summer program of his school’s invention factory. Tom Chan and his partner architect Kaanur Papo designed a total of approximately 800 prototypes for Unocup.
Now Unocup is already a company and they are still continuing the paper folding cup project. According to Tom Chan and Kaanur Papo, plastic caps need to pay 5% of the 8 million tons of plastic waste entering the ocean each year, and these are issues that should have been solved long ago.
This portable coffee cup is designed to reduce the use of plastic, but it is also ergonomically designed. The top of the cup is made into a foldable design, a bit like our common folding takeaway carton. It is folded into three parts and stuck. The idea is actually very simple, but it is not easy to do it well and to be durable.
Can this uncovered paper cup holder replace the traditional plastic cup holder? At present, this is still a relatively beautiful vision. This cupless design of the cup holder will not become mainstream for a long time, and it also has the disadvantages of being more easily deformed. If it is a take-away delivery, it is also a problem to have a plastic cup cover that is easier to spill. Many scenes we can’t imagine are preventing the popularity of such cupless design paper cups.
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