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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?
18 Comments
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
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).
YES!!!! this fee should be then collected by the city for recycling schemes.
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
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.
We live in a plastic world Everything I purchase has some plastic wrapping If something is not done (by law) soon the sea and earth will sink with it.
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?
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.
London, UK needs to get its finger out and roll out a bottle deposit scheme. It is tried and tested. It works and would help with the street rubbish considerably. Most boroughs can't even keep the bins from overflowing.
It is time to start charging for for rubbish at the source.
Mayor get your thinking cap on and roll it out already.
agreed
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.
Retailers should OFFER you to use your own cup or bottle on every purchase to raise awareness and normalise the situation, making sustainability the default.
If the customer wants a cup or bottle, first OFFER them a reusable one to drink in.
If the customer wants to take it away, charge a deposit for a reusable take-away cup or bottle so that the customer has to return it (not necessarily at the same establishment, though).
The benefits would be a massive reduction in the amount of waste produced and the associated environmental benefits.
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
Taking own cup with you isn't very convenient. Actually I use disposable cups at home when I go out so I can throw it away instead of keeping wet cup in my bag to take it home.
I would focus on making it easier to recycle.
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.
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.
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 !