A coffee shop chain has joined forces with a Cumbrian paper innovator to reduce waste and help customers pay more easily for their morning brew.

James Cropper, in Burneside, has produced packaging made of recycled takeaway coffee cups to hold Costa Coffee’s new Clever Cup, the first reusable coffee cup to enable contactless payments.

James Cropper has been working with Costa on recovering and recycling its takeaway coffee cups since the launch of its CupCycling facility in September last year.

It is the world’s first ever facility dedicated to transforming cups into luxury papers and sustainable packaging.

The Clever Cup, launched this month, uses Barclaycard Bpay contactless payment technology, which allows people to top up their balance and track payments via their phones.

Each cup comes in cardboard packaging containing waste fibre from one medio-sized takeaway coffee cup.

Richard Burnett, market sector manager for James Cropper, said: "This is a really exciting step for Costa who have brought about the marriage of technology and sustainability, of convenience and environmental responsibility.

"They are one of the leading lights on the high street in addressing the issue of disposable coffee cups, setting an example for others in the coffee business.

"To date, we have recycled 30 million coffee cups at our world-first CupCycling facility.

"However, we actually have the capacity to convert 500 million per year into papers for packaging in all colours for anyone wanting to follow in Costa's footsteps."

Jason Cotta, managing director at Costa Coffee, said: “While we are committed to ensuring more takeaway coffee cups are recovered and recycled we also want to incentivise and reward customers who help reduce the number of takeaway cups being wasted, and hope the innovative Clever Cup will become an additional incentive for increasing the use of reusable cups."