“We have taken a hard look at the entire range and radically reimagined it”, explains Kai Frahm, Head of Category Management Tobacco Food & Beverage at ORLEN Deutschland GmbH. The result is that we have not only started moving to recyclables for all of our coffee cups, irrespective of their size, since the start of the year, but have even begun using the corresponding lids at all star and ORLEN petrol stations, even though they are exempt from the EU regulation. We are able to do this by using bagasse, an environmentally-friendly packaging material that is a by-product of sugar cane – a rapidly renewable raw material. Since the paper cup has no plastic coating, it can be composted in an environmentally friendly way or disposed of in the waste paper bin. In addition to the coffee cups, other disposable packaging such as bakery bags, sausage/chips trays, and napkins can be disposed of in the waste paper bin.

The far-reaching switch to recyclable disposable packaging at the nearly 600 star and ORLEN petrol stations in Germany is set to save several tons of CO2 per year, depending on sales. “We are delighted to be able to offer our customers even more sustainable to-go products now, so that we can work together to play our part in protecting the climate”, says Frahm.

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Starting now, star’s own-brand mineral water and apple spritzer are also being produced in a more environmentally sustainable way. The two classic soft drinks will be sold in rePET bottles in a fresh new design. rePET (=recycled PET) is a material made from collected beverage bottles and they produce 50% less CO_​2 than conventional PET.