HOSPITALS have got through more than one million disposable cups over the past five years.

Figures reveal East Lancashire Hospitals Trust (ELHT) purchased more than 1.7 million disposable paper cups between 2013/14 and 2017/18.

The news comes amid rising concern over the environmental impact of single-use throwaway items.

Julie Stubbins, chair of East Lancs Green Party, said she was ‘shocked’ by the figure.

She said: “Our policy is to reduce, reuse and recycle, not to use single use disposable cups if we can avoid doing so.

“It did shock me to see this figure but at the Green Party we are aware of the pressures that the NHS is under financially and in other ways, which might explain the use of these cups.”

Nationally NHS trusts in England have purchased more than 600 million single-use disposable cups during the same period, according to data obtained through freedom of information requests by the Press Association.

Disposable cups are purchased across the NHS for hot drinks, cold drinks and dispensing medicines.

While some can be readily recycled others are considerably harder to recycle - such as plastic-lined coffee cups or polystyrene.

Susan Chapman, head of estates at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, said the trust is working closely with its vending supplier to replace single-use, disposable cups with recyclable cups 'as soon as possible.'

She said: “We have recently introduced a reusable cup offer in our restaurants with proceeds donated to the hospital charity, ELHT&Me.

"We currently use less than 1,000 single-use disposable cups per day to feed our 8,000 staff and many hundreds of visitors in restaurants at Burnley General and Royal Blackburn teaching hospitals.

"We do not use disposable cups for inpatient meals.

“The trust is working closely with our vending supplier to replace single-use, disposable with recyclable cups as soon as possible."

“We are also cutting our carbon footprint by recycling more, reducing waste and introducing electric vehicle charging points.