Ditch the disposables with MyCUP

Did you know we throw away nearly 1 million disposable cups a year at the University?

UK-wide, it’s estimated that 2.5 billion paper coffee cups are being thrown away every year. That’s almost 5,000 a minute, or 7 million per day.

MyCUP is the University’s new reusable cup scheme, encouraging students, staff and visitors to ditch the disposables.

What are we doing?

Our goal is to reduce the number of disposable drinks cups we throw away by 125,000 a year. We have introduced a range of ECoffee bamboo cups across University food outlets. On sale for just £4.50, the first drink with your purchase is free and you also receive a MyCUP loyalty card! You can find these by the till points across our food outlets.

Plus, instead of the 10p discount we used to give to those using a reusable cup, we’ve switched it around and will now be charging an additional 10p for a disposable cup. Those using a reusable cup for their hot drinks won’t be charged any extra – a bit like the plastic bag charge in UK supermarkets.

Help us cut carbon and waste

Disposable paper cups are coated with an oil-based plastic, making them very difficult to recycle. Alongside this, the manufacture, packaging, and transportation of disposable cups around the world has a significant carbon footprint, and the use of plastic lids adds to this even more.

How are we doing?

You can keep track of our progress by checking the MyCUP webpage.

This is a collaborative initiative between Hospitality Services and the c-change campaign, working together to make our University a more sustainable place.

Comments

Odie Tarr 10 December 2017 - 8.15pm Reply

This is a great scheme ad hopefully it proves successful. There are a couple of issues I’d like to flag up concerned with recycling at Brighton University.

All the recycling bins around the university say to deposit the disposable coffee cups in the recycling even though, as you state, the majority of coffee cups have a oil-based plastic coating that makes them very unlikely to be recycled. The Guardian newspaper and the Independent estimate 1 in 1000 and 1 in 100 cups are recycled. Can/does the university buy in cups without the plastic inner?

There is also an issue with people putting whatever waste the have into the recycling section of the bins, contaminating the rest of the recycling. This might be because they are unaware about what is recyclable or because the recycling section is much larger than the normal bin so it is just convenient and instinctive to put waste in the larger hole. Is there a sign or something else that can be used to signify not to put general waste in the recycling bin.

Thanks