Why our cat food cups usually aren't recyclable

We'd rather tell you directly than leave you guessing: our cat food cups aren't recyclable in most US cities (but keep reading for some notable exceptions, including Denver and Seattle). Here's why, and why the cups are still better than a typical plastic cup.

Our cat food cup is made of paper with a thin lining of LDPE-- a common food-safe plastic that's BPA-free. That LDPE lining is there to keep moisture from soaking into the paper. Without it, the paper would get soggy as the food thaws, and the food would be a lot more likely to get freezer burn. Your cat deserves better than a freezer-burned dinner.

Unfortunately, that lining is also what makes these cups not recyclable in most city recycling programs. Recycling works best when a package is made of one material. Since our cup is paper and plastic bonded together, most recycling programs can't process them. That's true of most other freezer packaging out there, too, since it's also nearly always coated in a plastic layer to keep moisture from infiltrating the paper layer.

Still, we're confident that these cups are the best option we’ve found for frozen food. The paper forms the cup's rigid sides, so the plastic only has to be a thin layer. That means these cups use 75% less plastic than a typical plastic cup. The paper in them comes from sustainably managed forests. We buy the cups from Huhtamaki, a Finnish sustainable packaging company, and they're manufactured in Spain.

When you're done with a cup, take a minute to check your local recycling program. A few outstanding city recycling programs do accept plastic-coated paper.-- although most of these expect it to be clean of fat/grease. Examples of cities that do accept our cups (assuming they're clean, empty and dry) include Denver (households with the purple recycling cart only) and Seattle (Seattle Public Utilities customers only). If your city does, rinse it clean before recycling. If not, it goes in the trash.

We haven't found a perfect frozen food packaging yet, but we're still looking. When we find something better, you'll hear about it from us.

Got questions in the meantime? Reach out. An actual human will answer.