Cafés throughout Sydney’s inner west are tripping over themselves to sign up to a new scheme that aims to reduce the amount of single-use coffee cups in the system.
A small crowd of cafés in the locale have teamed up with Green Caffeen to offer free reusable coffee cups that patrons can return once they’ve had their caffeine fix.
Born out of the frustration of having to remember your own Keep Cup each and every time you hit the cafe, Green Caffeen was inspired to shake up the system and create a means by which coffee drinkers could be environmentally friendly without the added pressure of having to bring your own cup.
After partnering with the Inner West Council, Green Caffeens ethos is now spreading like wildfire throughout the Inner West AKA Coffee Haven, Sydney, following a soft announcement of the roll out earlier in the month.
Cafe’s including Cornersmith, Two Chaps, Ona, Petty Cash and Cherry Moon have all signed up, as well as multiple businesses with in the beloved Marrickville Metro.
In total, 25 cafés are now offering swap-and-go reusable coffee cups, with Inner West Council footing the bill for the actual cups making the campaign completely free for punters, less the cost of the actual coffee.
Customers have 12 days to return their reusable coffee cup to the point of purchase, or else they’ll be charge the cost of the cup which is around $12. To take part in the scheme, you need to download the Green Caffeen app and sign up. cafés involved in the campaign will be offering free coffees for a limited time on release day, Tuesday 30th July.
“I used to have reusable cups floating around everywhere – in my car, my wife’s car, my gym bag, the dish drainer,” says Damien Clark, co-founder of Green Caffeen via Broadsheet. “We decided on a swap-and-go idea, based on swap-and-go gas bottles, because we’re blokes and that’s how we think.”
Green Caffeen was inspired by the dire situation surrounding single-use coffee cups. “Over 1.2 billion disposable coffee cups are used each year in Australia, 90% of which end up in landfill or littering the streets,” their website reads, adding “2.7 million coffee cups in Australia going to land fill each day.”
Off the top, Green Caffeen set themselves the target of removing 1 million single-use cups from the system. To date, they’ve 51,905 reusable cups of coffee have been sold through their partnering cafés, which now total 249.
That’s a little shy of critical mass but the message is clear – if you aren’t exploring ways to reduce your environmental footprint, you’re going to lose customers to those who are.
