How to prevent coffee cup litter
From flat white fanatics to filter coffee enthusiasts, almost every caffeine fan has enjoyed their favourite drink in a takeaway cup at one time or another.
For many it’s a regular occurrence. In fact, single-use cups are now so common, they’re starting to cause big litter problems.
No coffee shop wants to see litter on their doorstep – especially if it bears their valuable brand name. So it’s in all our interests to improve the situation.
You can’t write about coffee cup waste without mentioning the debate around whether single-use cups are recyclable. For anyone who hasn’t followed the ins and outs of the debate, the answer is yes – and no.
On the whole, cups are technically recyclable, but the process is complicated and costly enough to stop it being a widely available option.
Until the options for recycling improve, what can we do to reduce the number of cups that end up littering our streets?
Before trying to change behaviour, we have to change the way people think. When cups leave the coffee shop, they have a purpose – to hold a hot drink. When empty, they don’t. We need to make people realise that if they’re not put in a bin, they’re just litter.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s ‘War on Waste’ TV programme managed to drum up enough public pressure to make one major supermarket remove certain coffee products – disposable cups to use at home - from its shelves. The campaign also had a hand in persuading Starbucks to overhaul their incentives for reusable cup owners.
The Zero Waste Scotland toolkit includes resources to help you spread the word about coffee cup and other food packaging litter in your local area - all for free.