How Are Paper Cups Manufactured?
Printing Paper arrives in a cup factory on large rolls. One side of the paper roll is covered with a plastic or wax backing that will eventually become the inside of the cups. These paper rolls are fed into a large machine that prints selected designs on the non-coated side of the paper. After the paper has been printed, the machine cuts apart the designs on the paper to make small sheets known as “flats.” Each flat will become a cup. Flats vary in size, depending on the size of the cups being made. Forming After the flats have been stacked, they are fed into one end of a large machine. This machine rolls the flats into a cylinder and seals them by heating up the wax coating on the inside of the paper cups. At the same time, a roll of paper is fed into the other end of the same machine and circles are cut out of the paper to form the bottoms of the cups. The strip of paper left over after the cup bottoms have been cut is sent out for recycling. The machine brings the cup bottoms and cy
