Reusable cup giveaway to cut campus waste

Free reusable cups are being offered to University of Reading colleagues to help them reduce their environmental impact and save money on hot drinks.

All this week (12-18 September) every colleague will be entitled to collect a free plastic coffee cup from any café on campus, which will allow them to cut their use of disposable cups and buy hot drinks at a discounted rate.

The University is increasing its levy on paper cups to 50p from 12 September after the previous 20p levy saw a dramatic reduction in their use. The reusable cup giveaway will allow colleagues to pay the lowest possible rate for hot drinks without the initial outlay.

The initiative could prevent around 230,000 waste single-use cups being sent for incineration per year.

As part of this initiative:

• Colleagues buying a hot drink in their reusable cup between and paying with their campus card 12-18 September will receive a 25% discount on the drink. This is to also highlight the savings that can be made by paying for food and drink by loading funds onto your campus card and using this to pay.
• A cup rinsing station with still and sparkling water dispensers have been installed in the Library cafe to help keep reusable cups clean.
• The Breakfast Box café (Edith Morley Building) will not offer disposable paper cups at all from this week, so a reusable cup will be required to buy all hot drinks. The impact of this model will be periodically reviewed and potentially rolled out to other cafés in the future.

Martin Batt, Head of Retail and Hospitality Catering at the University of Reading, said: “As a University we are committed to reducing our environmental impact and we have seen that the levy on disposable cups has made a genuine positive difference in reducing waste.

“Being green comes at a cost, of course, and we know our colleagues, like everyone across the country, are facing financial challenges right now. This initiative is a small step towards addressing both issues.”

The University’s 20p levy on disposable cups was introduced in April 2018 and reduced the number of disposable cups used on campus by 174,000 between August 2018 and July 2019, as 46% of hot drinks were served in reusable cups during this period.

The money generated by the levy is ringfenced to be spent on green initiatives by the Catering team, including purchasing more reusable cups and bottles, and providing free meal boxes to students.