Boston Tea Party is the first coffee shop chain to say No Excuse for Single Use and completely ban single use coffee cups.
“We joined the global war on plastic some time ago. We stopped using plastic straws and plastic bottles, and have always done what we can to reduce, reuse and recycle. However, the elephant in the room was still the vast amount of single use coffee cups which left our cafes, only to be tossed into a bin, or worse, on the ground.” say our Partner.
So how can you, probably in a completely unrelated business and industry, learn and emulate such a bold and positive strategy? Well, the answer lies in spotting the opportunity in the first place.
There are many processes and systems that you can adopt to help put the good practice into action and embed it in your business. The tricky part of the equation is figuring out what to focus on in the first place.
This is where Boston Tea Party’s approach can help: Look for important market trends and become obsessed by the numbers.
In their announcement of the No Excuse for Single Use strategy, the business shared, “Only 1 in 400 (0.25%) of the estimated 2.5 billion plastic coated coffee cups* used in the UK each year are recycled. 4%, approximately 500,000, are littered every day. The rest (95.75%) go into landfill. Many compostable alternatives also end up in landfill as there aren’t enough accessible facilities in the UK to compost them.
We looked at the reality of the situation and realised there was only one way forward that would really make a difference. To stop issuing single use coffee cups altogether.”
Here’s the key learning point. We all need to look outside of our businesses. Look at the trends and what customers want. Where are the opportunities? What’s the marketplace, community or planet crying out for? What has everyone else missed that you can make happen? What do you see?
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As at the start of January, this initiative has helped save 91,000 cups from reaching landfill https://twitter.com/BTPcafes
What could YOU do inside YOUR business to reduce ‘single use’ everything?
… and the idea is spreading… https://zerowasteeurope.eu/2018/09/coffee-to-go-freiburg-says-tschuss-to-single-use-cups/
Do you have any examples you have seen that you can share? It’s all about building Collective momentum…
While we are in a completely unrelated industry, at my company we have ordered reusable bottles for every single employee in a bid to do our bit to tackle this. With the implications of plastic waste becoming ever more clear, it’s everyone’s responsibility to do their bit wherever they can
Interesting stats! I had no idea that so much went to waste.
There has definitely been a recent shift in society that places emphasis on discouraging single use items, and this is some great evidence of how that’s being done. I work for a construction company, in which all staff are given their own refillable water bottle. This eliminates the need for traditional water dispensers, especially on site, which would typically lead to additional waste.
There seems to be more companies moving away from single use plastic and soon as you open your eyes to it, it seems to be everywhere with hotels, toy manufactures etc. I work for a long established electrical manufacturing group where there is always a slight resistant to change therefore the approach I went with was to highlight ‘quick wins’ to demonstrate the positive impact we can have and the benefits that come with it. We looked a the packaging of small components, removing the small plastic bags they came in, this item is on a scheduled order of 2,000 per month.