Over 7,500 coffee cups kept out landfill in six months following Coffeeangel and Friends of the Earth’s #YourCupOurFuture initiative

May 1, 2018

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Last November, Ireland’s Coffeeangel launched their #YourCupOurFuture initiative committing to donate 20¢ to Friends of the Earth for every KeepCup or reusable cup used by their customers. Six months on, the popular independent coffee company has published results from their initiative and announced a savings of over 7,500 single-use paper cups kept out of incineration and landfill.

Caroline Sleiman, Director at Coffeeangel, commented: “Before we launched our #YourCupOurFuture initiative last November, a combined total of about 180 customers per week were regularly using reusable cups across our shops. Since then, use of reusable cups has nearly tripled to over 500 cups per week. And that number continues to climb!

We are delighted with how our customers have embraced this change and how, together, we are able to make a small but increasing positive impact on the waste issue that is facing us all.”

This week, Coffeeangel - with the support of their customers - presented their first €1,500 donation to Friends of the Earth from the initiative, which will go towards their recent widely reported “Sick of Plastic” campaign to reduce plastic waste and pollution

Friends of the Earth’s Head of Communications, Dr. Cara Augustenborg, welcomed the results of Coffeeangel’s initiative, explaining: “We’re amazed at the rapid success of Coffeeangel’s #Your Cup Our Future initiative, proving there is strong interest among their customers in reducing the environmental impact of their coffee break. Of course, we’re incredibly grateful to Coffeeangel’s customers for their support in allowing us to continue to campaign on environmental issues including plastic pollution and climate change, but even more broadly, we hope Coffeeangel’s results provide evidence for other establishments to adopt similar initiatives to tackle unnecessary waste and pollution.”

 Friends of the Earth launched the Sick of Plastic campaign in 2018, in partnership with VOICE Ireland, calling for four things to be done to tackle plastic pollution in Ireland, including: a deposit and return scheme for plastic bottles, measure to reduce single use plastic packaging; a ban on plastic microbeads; and supermarkets to take steps to reduce their packaging. The NGO recently organised a nationwide “Shop and Drop” day of action at supermarkets to encourage shoppers to leave their unwanted plastic packaging behind in an effort to encourage retailers to do more to address the waste crisis.

ENDS

#yourcupourfuture #sickofplastic

Photo caption*: Coffeeangel Director Caroline Sleiman and Head of Communications for Friends of the Earth, Dr. Cara Augustenborg, celebrate the success of their #YourCupOurFuture reusable cup iniative, keeping over 7,500 cups out of landfill in the past six months.

*Photo free to publish without fee care of coffeeangel. Photo credit: Anouska Photography

To arrange interviews: contact Dr. Cara Augustenborg, Head of Communications: Cara@foe.ie

Notes:

1. A link to the 1-minute promotional video of Coffeeangel’s ‘Your Cup Our Future’ initiative with interviews from Coffeeangel’s Karl Purdy and Friends of the Earth’s Cara Augustenborg is here.
2. Minister Naughten previously commented on the problem of single-use containers, citing that 2 million disposable coffee cups a day are going into landfills in Ireland, in a speech to The Dail in July 2017 here,
3. Concerns expressed by the Minister and the Green Party led to the Waste Reduction Bill to ban single use coffee cups, which is currently with the Oireachtas environment committee for further scrutiny. More information here.
4. KeepCup is an Australian brand developed by Abigail and Jamie Forsyth, a sister brother team who were dismayed at the large volume of waste that resulted from their Melbourne based café. Research conducted by Canadian chemist, Dr Martin Hocking found the break-even energy requirement to manufacture a reusable plastic cup versus a paper cup over a lifetime use was under 15 uses. Disposable cups are lined with polyethylene and have a polystyrene lid, there is enough plastic in 28 disposable cups to make one small KeepCup.
5. Coffeeangel is a group of Speciality Coffee shops, 100% Irish owned, based in Dublin and recognised as one of the leading Speciality Coffee shops in the world.
6. More information on Friends of the Earth Ireland is available at www.foe.ie, including updates on their Sick of Plastic campaign here.