London Environment Strategy consultation

I think retailers should be forced to offer reusable cups when available, some coffee shops (Costa in Victoria rail station is one of them, but not the only one) tend to offer disposable ones by default, even when you've stated you're staying and prefer a china cup.

Offices as well do nothing about it. My company have china cups that everybody can use, clean, available, enough in number. but they also have a water cooler with disposable cups so people use these, and they don't even reuse them but take 3-4 a day.

This requires some innovation. In 1970s we used to get 2p back on glass pop bottles brought back to the shop. These were then taken back to the bottling plant for re-loading. Recycling plastics seemingly is about rendering the waste plastic into new plastic. The rendering process can be expensive and contribute to other forms of pollution and greenhouse gases. What is required is for someone to invent a lightweight vessel that can be returned to the bottling factory for re-sterilisation and re-use. The person who can invent this will be as rich as the person who can invent a cure for baldness !

I think plastic bottles should have a deposit attached to them - recycle the bottle, get the deposit back.

I'd want to go further and ban single-use, small plastic bottles altogether but I'm not sure the public would be happy. It's a waste of plastic.

I've noticed when I visit my local chain store coffee shop it's become a given to serve customers in the paper/plastic cups (like it's a fashion accessory to hold the cup with the green mermaid on it) regardless on if the customer is drinking their beverage in store or taking it away.

I would be great if hot and COLD drinks particularly were offered in reusable cups and, maybe use an initiative to charge for take away cups to boost this further.

Notice how cold drinks have no alternative but the plastic cups?!?! Make it an experience and serve those frappucinos in tall glasses

My son just returned from Berlin, no plastic bottles, they've got glass bottles and you get paid to return them just like it used to be here. My son who is 20 thought this was great idea, homeless people, students, etc collect bottles and trade them in for cash.

The biggest problem I have with reusable bags, cups and bottles is that I have carry them around with me, and I rarely remember to take bags with me to the shop. If I’m going shopping in central I won’t take backpack or anything to carry a reusable cup. It would be better if say starbucks cups were non disposable and you could return it to any Starbucks to be washed and reused. Even better if this worked across coffee chains.

Recycling is not the solution, it is part of the problem.

How can we take recycling seriously when supermarkets are allowed to (for example) sell tin cans in packs of four wrapped in plastic? When most of the plastic we 'recycle' has 'not currently recyclable' printed on it? When a large proportion of our 'recycling' is reportedly shipped to Asia?

I don't believe most of what we 'recycle' is actually recycled but if I am wrong and it is, what is the environmental cost of that process?

Why doesn't anyone seem to want to cut down on the need to recycle by not producing this rubbish in the first place?

Right now there are few recycleable cups and bottles on offer. If recycleable cups and bottles were provided then it would make sense to incentivise using them. The cost of disposing of non-recycleable cups and bottles does not fall on the outlets and manufacturers that produce them, a classic economic external cost. The classic economic remedy is to tax non-recycleable cups and bottles by enough to convince the providers to offer recycleable alternatives. The mandatory charge for plastic bags has had a good effect. Applying a visible charge can work.

Go back to the old deposits on bottles system, as kids we would go round parks and open spaces and collect bottles for the deposit, thus helping clean up where others couldn't be bothered to, say a £1 returnable deposit to make it worth peoples while, & make them think if they actually need that coffee.
Perhaps an independent study into bottled & tap water, if people realised there wasn't that much difference, and realised the process of bottling water to sell, its a huge process, not some bubbling stream in a meadow.
The main issue is attitude, we have a use & go attitude to many things nowadays, not just food & drink containers, but tents at festivals, clothing, they have become cheap & therefore of little value to the people who buy them

Rather than selling you a cup of coffee in a free take-away cup, charge for the take-away cup (similar to a plastic bag charge). Make it compulsory for shops to offer to refill water bottles free of charge (and to have a sign to indicate this).

the short answer is nothing. The question you should be asking is how to make certain the containers are fully recyclable. At present the paper cup can not be recycled. you should also be asking how you stop people littering the streets and how you ensure they dispose of the recyclable containers properly and in a way that gives everyy oportunity to ensure they are taken for recycling