Billions of throwaway cups are used globally every year. This is wasteful and harms people, forests, water and the global climate. Our Cup Consciousness Campaign is persuading business leaders and politicians around the world to stop encouraging a throwaway culture by ensuring all cups are reusable.
Throwaway cups have a serious environmental impact - it's as simple as that. Humans have been drinking from ceramic, wooden, metal and other washable cups since the Stone Age. The invention of throwaway cups has resulted in global waste, deforestation and pollution. We need fast food and drinks companies and politicians to ensure everyone has the option of drinking tea and coffee from reusable vessels. Our message is simple - no throwaway cups.
By persuading individuals, drinks retailers and politicians to become 'cup conscious', we will bring about a reduction in the use of throwaway cups. We will ask drinks outlets to become 'cup conscious cafes' and always give customers an alternative to throwaway cups. We'll get politicians to do their bit by encouraging city-wide cup-sharing schemes, promoting discounts for people who use keep-cups and even considering taxes on throwaways.
Betacup estimates that 58 billion paper and plastic cups are used and thrown away each year, but other sources estimate up to twice as many. According to the Paper Calculator this requires at least one million tonnes of paper, the production of which uses 32 million trees and 100 billion litres of water (that's 43 thousand Olympic swimming pools) and emits as much greenhouse gases as half a million cars. A shift to reusable cups will prevent this waste, destruction and pollution.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
