Australians have an insatiable caffeine habit, but with more than one billion takeaway cups ending up in landfill every year it's a love affair that's taking a heavy toll on our planet.

That's why convenience store chain 7-Eleven is rolling out an Australia-first recycling strategy it hopes will keep 70 million takeaway cups out of landfill every year.

"I think most people don't appreciate that these cups are not recyclable," 7-Eleven CEO Angus McKay told HuffPost Australia.

You've probably seen BioPak's brown and white containers and coffee cups, embossed with a pale green leaf, at your local single-origin speciality coffee shop. Sold as biodegradable, recyclable and compostable, they are meant to be a pinnacle of sustainability.

One minor problem: their products are very difficult to recycle or compost in Victoria. The company is open about this, although it may surprise consumers.

It's estimated that as many as three billion coffee cups are sold each year in Australia. And most of these aren't recycled – they're piling up in landfill and escaping into our rivers, parks and marine systems.

Did you know Australians use one billion takeaway coffee cups each year? That's enough to stretch around the world twice. Contrary to popular belief, these are not yet recycled.

Robert Pascoe discusses his new program aiming to solve the problem of coffee cup waste. View the video on Facebook here

Recyclable takeaway coffee cups will soon be available in Australia.

Speaking on 3AW Drive, Strategic Marketing Manager at environmental solutions company Closed Loop, Brendan Lee, said the current system prohibits takeaway cups from being recycled.

"Cups are still not recycled, it's cost prohibitive to separate them from the co-mingled recycling stream, but instead, we have an innovative way to capture the cups at their source point".

It is estimated that Australians currently go through 1 billion cups a year.

Craig Reucassel is on a mission to uncover how much waste we produce as a nation and learn what we can about it. In tonight's episode he focuses on food waste as a staggering amount ends up in landfill every year.

Imagine walking down the street and placing your takeaway coffee cup in a stand-alone bin instead of a generic waste or recycling container. Well, the idea could soon become a reality.

As part of a joint initiative between City of Sydney, Queensland Government and Australian Packaging Covenant, environmental organisation Closed Loop Environmental Solutions conducted a trial to tackle the impact of Australia’s coffee cup addiction on landfill.

As Australia’s love affair with coffee hots up, takeaway coffee cups continually stack up in our landfills, taking 50 years to decompose. Now, a trial run by Closed Loop has seen separate bins for takeaway coffee cups introduced in three buildings in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

A stand-alone bin for takeaway coffee cups could soon be a common sight in offices across Sydney.

As part of a City of Sydney initiative, Closed Loop Environmental Solutions conducted a trial to tackle the impact of Australia’s coffee cup addiction on landfill.

Closed Loop Environmental Solutions placed bins for takeaway coffee cups in three office buildings in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to make the case for a dedicated takeaway coffee cup recycling facility.

The initiative is designed to combat Sydney's addiction to coffee cups, creating awareness of their negative effect on the environment. The average cup takes about five years to decompose.

It would take 213,900 years for the paper coffee cups used by staff at one city law firm in one month to decompose in landfill.

Think about how long it would take the 3.2 billions cups thrown away annually by Australians to break down.

A trial aimed at tackling the environmental impact of takeaway coffee cups could see stand-alone bins introduced to offices across Sydney.

The trial, run by Closed Loop Environmental Solutions, saw takeaway cup bins placed in three office buildings in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, in an effort to make the case for a dedicated coffee cup recycling facility.