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Can disposable paper cups not drink hot water? It is really not recommended to use this type of paper cup!

2025-11-09

Spring Festival gathering

Many families use disposable paper cups for drinking

But there is a saying that

Can't I use disposable paper cups to drink hot water?

Is that really the case?

Let's learn together

Can disposable paper cups really not drink hot water?

Some people say that disposable paper cups should be divided into cold drink cups and hot drink cups. If a cold drink cup is filled with hot water and the water temperature exceeds 40 ℃, the wax coating inside the cup will melt.

There is indeed a smooth layer on the inner wall of disposable paper cups. Depending on the coating, there are usually three types of disposable paper cups:

01 Wax coated cup

A paper cup coated with a layer of wax on its surface.

02 Straight walled double-layer cup

The cup wall has two layers of paper, with air between them, providing good insulation performance.

03 Polyethylene coated cup

The cup wall is covered with a thin layer of polyethylene.

Due to the low melting point of paraffin wax (generally not exceeding 60 ℃), if paper cups coated with paraffin wax are used to hold hot beverages or food, the paraffin wax will melt and penetrate into the cup, or make the paper cup soft and leak water, which can easily cause burns. Therefore, polyethylene coated cups are now commonly used.

Polyethylene coated cups are cast with a thin layer of polyethylene (PE) plastic coating on the surface of the paper, which is equivalent to a plastic film covering the paper cup. In the food industry, it is currently the mainstream paper cup product, which can be used for both hot and cold drinks.

Will plastic cups really drink plasticizers?

It is said online that drinking water from plastic cups can contain a lot of plasticizers, but this is actually misleading.

Plasticizer, as the name suggests, is a substance that makes plastic softer. So, it is only used in some soft plastics, such as plastic wrap. Hard and molded plastics do not require plasticizers. The plastic cups commonly used for drinking water are No. 5 plastic PP and No. 6 plastic PS, which should not be too soft to maintain the shape of the cup. So, you don't have to worry about plastic cups leaking plasticizers.

How to choose disposable plastic cups?

The online video claims that when choosing a plastic cup, look at the bottom number, the larger the number, the safer it is, but this statement is not accurate. In fact, as long as it is a legitimate and qualified plastic product, it can be used with confidence.

If you flip over the various plastic containers you usually use and take a look, you will find that the vast majority of them have a number icon at the bottom or on the side near the bottom, usually ranging from 1 to 7.

This is the internationally recognized plastic classification, where different numbers indicate plastics of different materials, and 1-7 in the middle of the figure represent different categories of labels.

It's best not to use these disposable paper cups!

Paper cups are often stacked for storage. If the pattern printed on the surface of the paper cup is prone to fading, the ink on the outer layer will migrate to the inner wall of the paper cup and enter the food when it is stored. Industrial ink contains fluorescent substances, benzene and toluene, as well as heavy metals such as lead and arsenic, which can harm human health.

According to the national standard "Paper Cups" (GB/T 27590), printing should not be done within 15mm from the cup mouth to the cup body and within 10mm from the cup bottom to the cup body, in order to avoid consumers ingesting the printing ink when using it. If there are no special requirements, it is best to choose products without printing to reduce the impact of printing ink.