Bristol-based environmental group, City to Sea, launched their new returnable and reusable Refill Return Cup on last months World Refill Day. The highly anticipated Refill Return Cup is an innovative and eco-friendly initiative aimed to revolutionize the way Bristolians enjoy coffee while reducing single-use cup waste. The Refill Return Cup is a reusable cup that can be picked up and dropped off at participating coffee shops across the whole city eliminating the need for single-use coffee cups.
Currently, more than 2.5 billion takeaway coffee cups are used and thrown away each year in the UK. That’s an astonishing 10,000 every two minutes. City to Sea estimates that if the Bristol Refill Return Cup was used by just one in ten residents just once a week, then 46,000 single-use cups would be saved across the city every week – that’s a massive 2.5 million single-use coffee cups a year.
To mark the launch of the cup City to Sea and Clifton Coffee Roasters are giving away a free cup of coffee on the 16th at the Bristol-based Future Leap café.
City to Sea’s Head of Development, Jane Martin commented,
“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 which completely eliminates the need to carry a reusable cup with you. Instead, you can pick one of our reusable cups up anywhere in the city and then drop it off at any participating coffee shop. These will all be mapped on the award-winning Refill app.”
The innovative new Refill Return Cup will allow residents to have their takeaway tea and coffee in a reusable cup which they can borrow from participating coffee shops for free and return to any participating outlet in the city. The Refill Return Cup is funded by the Bristol-based Ecosurety through their Ecosurety Exploration Fund.
Marvin Rees, Mayor of Bristol said,
“A year ago I set City to Sea the challenge of making sure that any solution to plastic pollution is accessible to the whole city and they’re rising to this challenge. We’ve now got coffee shops from across the city where you can borrow and return the Refill Return Cups. City stakeholders from UWE to the NHS to small independents are joining forces. This is a One City approach to help make sure that the places we love can stay litter free.”
Hannah Sturman, Director of Transformation & Stakeholder Relations at Bristol Waste added,
“We’re delighted to see the launch of the Refill Return Cup scheme that prioritises reuse and a circular economy in Bristol. Driving down the use of single-use plastic materials is essential to reducing its impact on the environment and creating new reusable solutions for residents. Fewer littered coffee cups on our streets is a fantastic bonus for us at Bristol Waste, and we’re looking forward to seeing the effects of the scheme grow across the city.”
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”.
[…] to Sea launched their new returnable and reusable Refill Return Cup, an innovative and eco-friendly initiative aimed to revolutionize the way Bristolians enjoy coffee […]