Initiative To Pay People To Return Coffee Cups Shows Overwhelming Success – CoffeeTalk

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Three years after Aarhus launched an initiative to reduce carry-out coffee cups, three-quarters of a million cups have been reused, resulting in €514,000 being paid out in the form of €70-cent rebates to conscious consumers who return their cups to depositories located around the city. Reusable, a government-backed firm that distributes thick plastic coffee cups and lids to local cafes, has been involved in the initiative. Simon Smedegaard Rossau, project manager for circular packaging at Aarhus Municipality, said that 45% of waste in Aarhus came from takeaway packaging. In 2024, the company launched a three-year trial with Reusable and a Norwegian company called TOMRA, which makes the collection machines.

45 city cafes were brought under the banner of the initiative to try and change mindsets. During the city’s week-long festival Aarhus Uke in September, event concession companies agreed to exclusively use the Reusable cups. By the end of the event, 100,000 cups had been used and returned, filling up 1,200 wheeled curbside trash bins.

The return rate is 88%, meaning a cup is reused 44 times. 14 metric tons of plastic were saved during the program, which saw 235,000 more cups used and deposited in the first year than anticipated. The next goal is to see if these cups could be used and deposited 1.5 million times.

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Source: Coffee Talk

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