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Single use cups and bottles
Single use, disposable cups (such as coffee cups) and bottles (such as for bottled water) create a lot of waste. This is avoidable.
Thinking about your own experience, what could retailers do to make you use a reusable cup or bottle? What do you think the benefits would be, or what concerns would you have?
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The Mayor needs to show leadership and take ambitious action to prevent single use plastic in London.
I fully support the campaign asks and justification of Water for London to install water refill points across the TfL network - creating a refill culture with easily accessible, well signposted water points at every station backed by a public marketing campaign. Where these have already been installed (Hammersmith, Embankment pier etc.) they are popular and successfully prevent plastic being used - build it and they will come!
We really need to focus on reducing the plastic waste in the first place. Companies should provide only re-useable cups, and people can either keep them to re-sue, or hand them back in for a deposit return.
Recycling is a lesser part of the solution, we need to prevent the single use plastic in the first place.
and we need infrastructure of water-fountains/refill points across the city.
There is a huge public need for accessible drinking water across London. By installing drinking water refill stations across transport stations would help to reduce the number of plastic drinking bottles bought and predominantly littered on the streets/not recycled. The staggering amount of approximately 16 million bottles wasted every day in Britain is inexcusable and action needs to be taken NOW! I firmly stand behind the Water For London Campaign as it is campaigning for refill stations across the transport network. Not only will this help to curb our plastic pollution in our parks and on our streets e.t.c. but free drinking water will have huge health benefits for people. They will be encouraged to drink more water as opposed to sugary drinks on the go and less plastic bottles bought will help to reduce the plastic waste that ends up in the Thames and eventually our oceans (80% of our litter) threatening the marine ecosystem.
Please think Mayor of London and get behind this- it must happen- for the sake of the people and environment!!
I would like to see the Mayor provide more water refill points - to lead by example. I support the @WaterforLondon campaign to put refill points/water fountains in all Transport for London stations.
A public water refill network in London, based around tube, train and bus stations - as well as key walking & cycling routes - would have environmental (less plastic use, less litter), health (access to public water to support wellbeing in summer heat and anti-obesity drives) and financial (less money spent buying and clearing up plastic) benefits - a win, win, win scenario for Londoners.
Here's to your Leadership Sadiq!
I would like to see the Mayor provide more publicly accessible refill points - to lead by example - I support the Water for London campaign to put refill points in all Transport for London stations
We need to look beyond retailers to what the Mayor can control personally. I am really behind the idea of water refill points in TfL stations. We need a dramatic change in infastructure to make it normal to carry a refillable water bottle and I think this would help a lot
Retailers should just less for coffee when you provide your own cup.
Cups should be completely recyclable.
There should be water fountains at every station, in every park, square, shopping centre etc. so people can refill water bottles.
Water should be in bottles not plastic, and should have a meaningfull returnable deposit
Bottled water should be banned and more taps should be installed across the capital. As a city, we are so behind on the plastic bottle take back schemes and targets for reducing waste to landfill, it's embarassing.
Some of you have mentioned you might forget to bring your reusable cup or bottle along.
If you forget, do you think it's fair that people are given a charge when buying that product? Would that help you remember?
Talk London
Certainly having a charge helps incentivize, and prompts people to remember. I'd be OK with that. And it could be with a deposit-return type charge in some cases.
For me, the main obstacle to using reusable cups/bottles is having to carry something round whilst I'm not using it. If I could pick one up when I need it, and then deposit it somewhere convenient when I'm done, then I'd be happy.
Hello. I'd like to see disposable coffee cups simply banned. From what I've read and seen on TV the coffee chains aren't motivated to find an alternative solution so by banning the cups they'd be forced to invest in cups that can be recycled or by putting more focus on reusable cups. I also try to avoid sugar and don't think its right that such an addictive substance is so easily available. Again could we not just ban food and drinks with more than 5% fructose sugar? Levels above that make the product addictive.
I keep a cup at work for coffee and tea and now I try to use my own forks, etc for lunch having read what an issue disposable cutlery is too. Its hard to remember to have it with you though.
Thanks a lot for all your ideas.
Many of you have suggested recyclable cups or bottles. Is there a size that would work best for you? Or are there other options such as foldable or shrinkable bottles and cups that you think would work better for you?
Talk London
There is no problem in Germany recycling plastic bottles and metal cans. Aldi and Lidl and most other supermarkets over there have machines that receive the empties, scan them and refund the deposit as a voucher so that it can be taken off the next shopping bill. Also people can be seen picking up any discarded bottles as they can claim the refund on them too. Every little helps!
Why can't coffee shops
have 'must have' logos on them and even sell them? What is wrong with washing the cups up? A local tea shop in Sidcup uses recycled china cups and saucers which all get washed up without leaving rubbish on the streets. People 'on the go' would be better with a reusable screw top flask.
Why not biogradable cups and bottles?
Initially these would cost more but prices will come down.
If biogradable will dissolve into harmless organics. So no more floating bottles in the sea choking fish OR as an aside, plastic bags doing the same.
Some retailers offer a discount for people using their own coffee cups, such as Le Pain Quotidien. There should be more recycling points throughout the capital for lots of things, such as paper and plastic and coffee cups. The Germans are very good at this, and have been doing it for years, you can see recycling points at railway stations and in the street. Why not London?
I remember a time when there were water fountains (mainly in recreational areas). This meant you could have drinking water, without the need for any type of cup or bottle at any time of day or night. How practical would it be to reinstall drinking fountains throughout the capital?
We have seen the charge for single use plastic bags reduce the numbers used dramatically. Why not do the same with cups and water bottles. Or again, go back to the old idea of charging a refundable deposit on bottles.
Great idea. This is what teh @WaterforLondon movement is asking for, across the TfL network.
https://actions.sumofus.org/a/sadiq-khan-plastic-water-fountains-london
All cafes should be forced to collect cups for recycling (just like Costa's new pilot program), accepting cups from any cafe. The on-street green recycling bins need to accept cups for recycling. Or cafes should be forced to only serve cups that are already widely recyclable (no plastic lining).
Meanwhile, an extra charge for a take-away cup will be much more incentivizing than a discount. People's brains are funny like that.
People will not change their habits if businesses make it too easy to be lazy. The responsibility must fall on businesses because they are reaping huge profits off the degradation of our shared planet by encouraging our lazy nature.
Single use plastic bottles should not be sold in sizes smaller than 1 L. Cafes/Prets/etc and especially airports need to advertise their willingness to fill bottles for free. London streets need water fountains.
Also, companies that hand out free samples on London streets need to prove that they have a clean up team to pick up and recycle the mess they make. Coke was recently handing out tiny single use cans, which after 30 seconds absolutely FLOODED Oxford street. People were kicking them around for days. Single-use sample packaging needs to be cleaned up by the company handing them out.
Wonderful initiative by Borough Market to ban the sale of single use plastic bottles and instal water fountains. These should be available in public spaces throughout London, starting, for example, in Trafalgar Sq.
I volunteer to clean parks and the Thames and canals of litter. One thing we see lots of that hasn't been mentioned is STYROFOAM packaging. It takes donkeys years to decompose and could easily be banned and cardboard used instead. McDonalds/KFC got rid of it years ago; the Mayor should ban it London-wide and force kebab and other takeaways to stop using it.
Deposits on bottles would be great as others have suggested
The mayor should use his powers to force all establishments to offer re-usable hot drinks containers. They could have a lid and even a bag to keep them in, to avoid the problem of carrying around a dirty wet cup in your bag. Currently companies prefer to give throw-away containers because they have their branding on them, but given enough time, they could easily make branded re-usable cups. There have to be laws and financial incentives. As other commentators have said, the charge for plastic bags has been a huge success, because it was compulsory. Voluntary schemes never work. It takes time for people to learn new habits.
In addition I think all premises that have the facilities to do washing up should be forced to offer china cups as an alternative to take- away ones.
Drinking water should be available in the streets for free.
Adverts featuring throw-away bottles should be banned. Adverts for mineral water in throw-away bottles should be banned.
There should be educational campaigns in schools, through posters and ads in newspapers, to make people aware of the damage being done by our throw-away society.
Great ideas!
Thanks everyone for sharing your views and suggestions. We’ll share these with our Environment Team.
Many of you like the idea of a charge for single use cups and bottles, and a bottle deposit scheme. The draft Environment Strategy proposes the feasibility of a deposit scheme for water bottles, which will be investigated through the government’s litter strategy working group.
Do you think this could work in London or not? And how?
Talk London
Could there not be a. 'Environmental' charge levied on coffeeshops and restaurants for all the rubbish they put out for collection? I'm amazed at the huge number of refuse (recycling) bagsoutside restaurants and coffee shops when I walk through central London in the morning. Having to pay a sizeable amount if money might force them to rethink their usage.
We should aim to reduce before recycle. Many people seem to think that recycling magically reuses every part of a 'recyclable' item and they seem to forget the energy used to perform the recycling - let alone the energy needed to produce the next 'recyclable' item for them to use. People feel good when they recycle something and they've come to believe that they can use as much as they want as long as they recycle it. Education explaining that recycling is good but reducing and reusing is better should be a priority. Most people are inherently lazy and many find it a chore to carry an empty plastic bottle with them let alone a full one. Also on a (rare) hot day I might buy a bottle of something cold rather than drink the warm water that I by then have in my bag. If I could easily fill my bottle with cool water I would never buy a drink when out for the day. If you have visited the Hampton Court Flower Show on a hot day and have seen the long queues of people waiting patiently to re-fill their water bottles you would see that for whatever reason people will do this.
I think that a deposit scheme would work, as lots of other people have said, but not using so many plastic bottles in the first place would be even better.
Use of reusable bottles should be made easy - two ways are providing drinking fountains in the streets, as in Italy, Austria etc. These don't even have to be permanent or plumbed in expensively - in Vienna in the summer there are movable ones that are put out on the streets temporarily. Even easier is to compel any business selling takeaway drinks to also provide tap water free of charge for refilling water bottles.
Socially, using reusable bottles and coffee cups needs to be the default - so for the barista always to ask for your own cup before fetching a disposable one, charging more for a disposable cup, pointing out the tap water when people ask for a bottle etc. It's all about a shift in mindset as much as changes in policy.
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.
All previous replies have constructive suggestions which would help reduce waste. However, in my experience it is only when a measure is made compulsory that it becomes widely effective. The charge on plastic shopping bags is a prime example -and this 10p small charge doesnt really break anyone's bank. Does the Mayor have the power to introduce such a measure? I hope he does and will use it.
Allowing reusable cups to be disposed of easily (so for example you buy one coffee at Borough station, drink it in your way to office then dispose of it at costa liverpool st station). so you don't have to carry it the whole day.
You can have people pay an extra £5 when taking this cup then money is returned when they drop it at the other shop (no cost for user, and shops are guarenteed they're actually returned). maybe a lot of hassle to implement this though.
I completely agree with "Bond Street"'s comments below!
The technology already exists for disposable cups, plates and utensils that are biodegradable. It amazes me that this is not a mainstream requirement. Sure it costs more, but it would be multiple times more effective in protecting the environment than charging people for non-biodegradable materials. Also, the higher cost for businesses to use biodegradable materials that will be passed on to consumers will in effect be like the additional charge proposed for non-biodegradable products so it has no worse effect.
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 take my own reusable cup with a lid (bought for a few quid) to my local costa near my work and they give me a 30p discount each time for bringing my own cup. This is not widely advertised nor something all chains / coffee shops do but it's a pretty good idea.
The loyalty points I am collecting can't be used on a discounted coffee though?! So loyalty and discounts would be a good way incentivise wider use of reusable cups.
The thing about refilling water in your own bottle is nozzle hygiene... depending on how it's done of course.
I recently read that reusing a water bottle is absolutely fine, you just need to wash it just like you would wash a cup.
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.
Glass is heavy and dangerous. Tetra packs are even more difficult to recycle. For now on I'll stay with plastic bottles. However I wish rubbish from public bins would be recycled. I recycle at home but am too lazy to take empty bottles home.
There are not enough water fountains to use refillable bottles and the quality of existing once is questionable. Tap water gets smelly after few hours in the heat. Bottle water stars fresh for weeks.
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