We open our eyes investigating and organizing our #CoffeeCupPledge (we asked 50 coffee lovers not to use disposable cups in September 2018 and instead use our travel mug).
Maybe you saw Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and his #waronwaste campaign last year. Here below, on the BBC, he explains that the disposable cups used by most coffee shops and chains seem to be unrecoverable.
If you are interested in helping and making changes, just ask at our #CoffeeCupPledge. We have extended our deadline until August 24, 2018.
Simply write an email to LinkedIn or tell us your name, your business and your position, why you like coffee and how often you visit a cafeteria weekly. The top 50 applicants will receive a Steel City travel mug, which they can use during the commitment and then save!
In the United Kingdom alone, 8 million take-away coffee are purchased every day. That is a lot of coffee. There are also many cups (not to mention the tapas and cup holders). However, it is fine because these cups are recyclable according to the large coffee chains. Why do not we believe that? Finally, most are labeled with the recognizable Mobius Loop icon (three arrows in a triangle) that indicates recyclability.
However, the reality is that even these coffee cups are not as recyclable as we might think.
Why are these cups not recycled?
While the cups are theoretically recyclable, the cup has a polyethylene lining that is difficult to separate from the cup. Even Recycle Now, a government-funded recycling campaign, states that these cups should not be disposed of with normal household waste. However, Richard Kirkman, of Veolia, United Kingdom and Ireland, said that a small proportion of these cups, which come from ecological domestic containers, can be reused as a source of fuel.
What does that say about the ethical and ecological demands of coffee chains? Not much, as a necklace showed, he removed the recyclable logo from his cups and placed it in the optional sleeves instead.
It's a story similar to bottled water. While almost all plastic bottles are recyclable, a large proportion end up in landfills or, what is worse, in the sea, where 10% of all plastic bottles cause ecological problems and unsightly dirt.
So what can you do?
For plastic bags, taxes have certainly made a big difference. The plastic bag tax introduced in Ireland for the first time in 2002 and in the United Kingdom last year has changed the way we buy.
Figures from the Ministry of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) show a sharp decrease in the number of disposable plastic bags that were issued between October 2015 and April 2016 Coffee cups?
Unfortunately, the answer is probably no. While the bags can be easily reused the next time you buy, it is a bit more complicated to carry bottles and cups to fill in at the store. The tax may not be the ideal solution, unless the cafeterias have introduced (and accepted) a standardized and reusable cup.
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