The initiative, titled Refill Return Cup, will see Bristolians able to pick up and drop off a reusable coffee cup at any of the ten participating coffee shops. Some of these include Future Leap Café, Small Goods and Small St Espresso.
To participate, residents will need to sign up via the Refill app, which the barista will use to scan the QR code on the cup. The deposit-free cup can then be returned within 14 days, with the app helping to find a nearby return spot.
Refill Return Cup is funded via Ecosurety’s Exploration Fund which was launched in 2019 “to invest £1 million in projects that could reduce the environmental impact of packaging, batteries or e-waste through innovation or research in the UK”.
It is hoped that the scheme will help consumers as it would “eliminate the need to carry a reusable cup with you”.
Bins
Highlighting the amount of unnecessary waste, City to Sea’s head of development Jane Martin, said: “We can’t keep going as we are with park bins overflowing and our Harbourside littered with floating single-use coffee cups. We need to do things differently. And after years of research, we are really delighted to be launching our Refill Return Cup that completely eliminates the need to carry a reusable cup with you.”
Gareth Morton, discovery manager at Ecosurety, commented: “Ecosurety is proud to support the Refill Return Cup initiative. Offering accessible reusable cups will help reduce the consumption of single-use items, leading to less landfill waste and a smaller carbon footprint. We hope this scheme will act as a pilot for similar schemes to work through the Refill app in future.”
Coffee cups
City to Sea explained that the scheme aims to reduce single-use cup waste, noting that more than 2.5 billion takeaway coffee cups are used and thrown away in the UK every year. According to an Environmental Audit Committee’s report which looked at this issue in 2018, less than 1 in 400 cups gets recycled.
This is because they are made from paper and lined with plastic to be waterproof, but most recycling facilities cannot remove the plastic lining, the report adds. In addition, around 500,000 disposable cups are littered every day, the document says.
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