Material and food contact
What the goods are made of: board weight, the polyethylene barrier, single and double wall construction, PET for chilled service, and straight answers on heat, machines and recycling.
A disposable cup looks like a simple object and is not one. Material that would collapse in a glass of water has to carry a drink at serving temperature for the length of a service without losing its shape, and it manages that through a combination of stock weight, a barrier film and the geometry of the wall. This page describes what is inside the goods we supply and, just as deliberately, what we decline to claim about them.
Stock weight and what it is doing
Cup board is specified in grams per square metre, the mass of a single square metre of the material, and it is the closest number there is to what a buyer means by feel. Across this catalogue the figure runs from 210 gsm on the smallest shells to 310 gsm where a wall must stay rigid with 400 ml inside it. It is set article by article rather than across a range, so the 9 oz sits on 250 gsm while its neighbours differ, and heavier material appears wherever height and volume put more load on the side of the shell.
Heavier is not automatically better. Material too stiff for a small format wastes fibre and makes a clean rolled rim harder to form, while material too light in a tall format lets the wall flex under a firm grip. Where a weight is published beside an article, that is the weight used for it. Where the field is blank, the specification is confirmed on your offer instead of being estimated on a web page.
The barrier, the second wall, and where PET belongs
Board on its own would wet through within minutes, so the face that meets the drink carries a thin extruded film of polyethylene. That film is the whole reason a cup made of fibre works at all, and it is present on chilled articles as much as on hot ones, since a cold drink works on the wall from within while condensation runs down it from outside. Everything touching the beverage is food-grade material, and the documentation covering the stock and film used on your particular production run is shared during the quotation rather than advertised as a badge here.
A double wall is a second layer of board wrapped around the first with still air trapped between them, and that air is what keeps the outside comfortable to hold when no separate sleeve is stocked. It costs a little space in the box, because a double shell nests less deeply than a plain one. Transparent PET is a different material for a different task: it stays clear and stiff when cold, which is what an iced drink or a layered dessert needs to be seen through, and nothing hot is ever poured into it.
Heat, machines and how the goods are stored
These are single-service articles, filled once at a counter and discarded, and they are not cookware. A lined shell is not a vessel for reheating: a microwave warms the contents unevenly and can push a wall past what the film and the seam were drawn for. Nor is anything here dishwasher goods, since one wash cycle finishes an article of this kind. Where the suitability of a specific item for a machine matters to your operation, it is confirmed in writing before you buy.
Storage decides more than most buyers expect. Keep the goods in their sealed sleeves, off the floor, in a dry room away from strong odours and direct sunlight, because fibre takes up moisture from the air and printed inks can mark under heat in a store room. Treated that way a box holds its shape and its stack until it reaches the counter. Left in a damp yard it will not, whatever weight the material carries.
Recycling, and what we will not claim
A lined shell is a composite: paper fibre with a polymer film bonded to its inner face. The two can be separated, but only by a mill equipped to do it, which makes the honest answer to whether such an article is recycled depend on the collection system where it is used rather than on the article itself. Some countries operate dedicated streams and the same item is recovered; elsewhere it goes to general waste. PET is among the more widely collected polymers, and precisely the same caveat applies to it. The export boxes and sleeves your goods travel in are plain uncoated board and belong in ordinary paper collection. We would rather say that plainly than publish an environmental claim we cannot show the paperwork for, and if your tender calls for specific material documentation, ask for it alongside your quantities and it is answered with the offer.