PKG0024
Written evidence submitted by Wimborne War on Waste (WWOW) - a community group
Executive Summary:
1.1 Introduction to Wimborne War on Waste
WWOW is a small community group, set up in January 2017, consisting of residents who share a passion for reducing the amount of rubbish we produce in our town of Wimborne Minster, Dorset. We have focussed our awareness-raising campaign initially on one item, disposable coffee cups and lids, and would like to become the first town in the UK to eliminate the use of disposable coffee cups and lids from our cafes and shops. We are sending a written submission to the Environmental Audit Committee inquiry on Disposable Packaging: Coffee Cups and Plastic Bottles, as we feel that we have started something in Wimborne Minster which will be of interest to the Government. It is fully sustainable, has the potential to be duplicated across the UK and would have a positive impact in dealing with one of these important issues.
Through our ‘coffee cup awareness’ days, social media presence through Facebook https://www.facebook.com/WimborneWaronWaste/, email groups, networking and displays at local community events we aim to inspire people to think more deeply about their own use of disposable coffee cups and single-use plastic. We hope they will then change their own behaviour and subsequently inspire others to do the same. We feel that the first principle of environmental sustainability is to rethink and reduce consumption, then to re-use and refill, much the same as DEFRA’s waste hierarchy. Our advice to consumers is to:
Reduce - take a seat, have a coffee in a warmed ceramic cup with a saucer.
Re-use - get a stylish, reusable coffee cup. Then form a habit to use it daily.
Refuse & Recycle - If you must use a disposable then don't take a lid. If you do need a lid then take it home and put it in your household recycling bin.
Request - Ask your café to provide you with a reusable cup to take away, and ask for a discount for using it again and again! If you really do need a disposable cup ask for a compostable cup and lid made from vegetable matter not plastic, there are options available which look and feel amazing!
As a result of just two community awareness events we have generated over 100 signatures on a pledge to reduce disposable coffee cup usage. An additional 100 people responded to an online survey sent out to the general public at the start of our campaign, asking them about their coffee drinking habits! Our impact is mainly measured anecdotally, but we have had a new sister group open up in Bournemouth (who we are helping and advising). The feedback we receive, word of mouth quotes, numbers of people who sign up to our email group, requests for us to talk about our work across different waste-related bodies and numerous likes and shares on our FB page is proving that raising consumer awareness works. We are also impressed by a few of the town’s cafes who have signs up offering discounts if customers use a reusable cup! We also now have a couple of outlets who have started using re-usable straws and banned plastic straws as a result of our awareness work. We try to share these positive news stories on our Facebook site to inspire others.
We feel that our group’s grass roots/small-scale approach so far, has potential to grow and be really effective in raising awareness and changing behaviour, but it needs the backing and support of Government and Business for it to work at all levels and therefore be most effective.
1.2 The problem with disposable coffee cups
Each minute 5,000 single use cups are thrown away in the UK, which amounts to 7million cups each day and 2.5 billion each year! Most of these cups are not recycled (as they have a plastic lining) so end up as landfill or are incinerated. That’s a lot of rubbish we throw ‘away’ as a result of our desire to have a ‘coffee on the go’!
In Wimborne Minster, Dorset disposable coffee cups form a significant part of the litter found around the town and its green spaces. Litter Free Coast and Sea and Litter Free Dorset recently stated that: We have found that single use items such as wet wipes, straws, disposable coffee cups, plastic bags and plastic bottles are some of the most common litter items found on beach cleans along the Dorset coast and on inland litter picks too. They have become a huge part of our ‘consumer-led’ culture.
One of the main problems we have found is a lack of awareness, the public think they can recycle their disposable coffee cups (and are often taking them home and putting them in their household recycling bins). They believe that the local waste provider is recycling them, but once they find out they are not recycled they are open to ideas and ways to change their behaviour. See http://www.packaging-gateway.com/features/featurepointless-waste-the-problem-with-disposable-coffee-cups-5845883/
The Dorset Waste Partnership provides a kerbside collection for dry mixed recyclate. Currently, the scheme does not include disposable coffee cups as these are not separated at the material recycling facility they use and would be treated as rejects by re-processors. There are no facilities at “bring-banks” or Household Recycling Centres that accept coffee cups for recycling.
Environmentally, the problem with disposable coffee cups is well documented, as they are made from plastic (petroleum based product) alongside paper, and they need energy to manufacture them, then dispose/recycle them. All this effort for an ‘unnecessary’ product in use for a very short time and then thrown away forever.
1.3 Awareness about the issues
WWOW members have been actively investigating recycling and waste in Dorset since January 2017, and we have recently joined the Dorset Litter Free Working Group. Alongside others in this group we don’t think that consumers are aware of the complexities of recycling, indeed throughout the short time we have been active in our campaign we have tried to find out what actually happens to the rubbish in our public bins in town (not our household recycling collections) and we now know that it is all incinerated and not recycled. This is shocking given that most of the disposable coffee cups and lids are thrown away in the public rubbish bins across town and are therefore not available to be recycled even if they could be!
We feel that awareness of the issues (and legislation) is the key to changes in behaviour, and more information needs to be available through community events, schools’ curriculum based education programmes, local businesses and campaigns. People need to be given the opportunity to think about their impact on the environment and ways they can reduce their negative impact. This should be combined with a nationwide publicity campaign and a joined up approach to recycling across the UK. See https://www.raconteur.net/sustainability/will-sustainable-packaging-soon-go-mainstream?utm_content=bufferf11c8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer
In addition to raising awareness in consumers, a different approach at the point of sale is required. Instead of assuming a disposable cup will be used, the question should be, do you have a re-usable cup with you or would you like to buy one?
All of these awareness raising ideas are needed alongside policy and bans on certain products deemed unnecessary and most polluting, such as disposable coffee cups.
1.4 What can we do?
WWOW understands that the issues around disposable coffee cups (and modern day consumerism) are complex, but we suggest that for a successful outcome to reduce litter and our impact on the environment, the ultimate solution would be to ban the use of these items (and other single use plastic items such as plastic bottles, straws and plastic bags). France announced a ban on disposable coffee cups and plates by 2020 (except those that are completely compostable) see http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/suzanne-themps/coffee-cup-ban_b_12133662.html. The UK is in a strong position to follow this example and inspire others to do the same.
1.5 Addressing the problems
We feel that manufacturers and companies promoting and using disposable coffee cups do not seem to be taking the environmental issues seriously. Costa for example, on their Facebook page conversations, say that their cups and straws are recyclable, and people can take their cups back into their stores where they will be recycled. This assumes that their customers, rather than use a reusable cup, will buy a disposable cup, walk away and then somehow take all their cups back to the same store to recycle them! We feel this is unlikely and not dealing with the source of the problem, indeed passing observations of public rubbish bins in Wimborne town centre shows the majority of rubbish is disposable coffee cups from Costa and Waitrose. From a waste management point of view the greatest obstacle in street recycling is contamination and we don’t feel the public are suddenly going to seek out different bins to put their rubbish in for recycling (sadly).
The PCRRG’s latest update dismisses all interventions aimed at reuse – charges, taxes, deposit schemes and levies are not supported by the group at all and their only aim appears to be the redesign of another disposable cup and to put recycling bins in some of the coffee outlets. But this does not capture the majority of cups which are disposed of in public bins to be incinerated, put in landfill or littered across the country. See http://www.pcrrg.uk/uploads/3/1/9/1/31915573/pcrrg_progress_report_september_2017.pdf
Meanwhile, plastic has now entered the human food chain, and poses an enormous risk to all, see http://www.exeter.ac.uk/research/feature/foodchain/
1.6 WWOWs vision – learning from others
We would like Wimborne Minster, a town which has a population of 15,500 with 22 cafes and businesses selling takeaway drinks, to be the first UK town to be disposable coffee cup free. We have surveyed most of the cafes and there is an interest in reducing the use of disposable cups in many of them as long as there is no additional cost they would have to incur. The Wimborne Business Improvement District (BID), a business-led initiative to invest money into the local economy of a town, are very supportive of our campaign as it fits well with many of their priorities. Our local MP Michael Tomlinson is also helpful and involved in our campaign and we have Town Council members in our group. We feel that there is a groundswell of interest and a real desire to try to minimise the availability and use of single use plastic - in particular disposable coffee cups in our town, but how can we encourage households, businesses, food and drink outlets, and offices to change behaviours or introduce policies to reduce their disposable coffee cup waste?
We have a number of suggestions, the initial one is based on the German University Town of Freiburg which has a reusable coffee cup deposit scheme aimed at reducing and ultimately removing disposable coffee cup waste. Cafes would join this scheme and would all use the same town branded reusable cups across their stores, encouraging customers to buy a coffee on the run (if they have to) in a reusable cup (after paying a deposit) which can then be dropped off in another café to be washed up and reused again and again. An initial cost to buy large numbers of reusable cups would be needed but this would provide a unique initiative for the UK. See links for details: http://resource.co/article/german-city-trials-reusable-coffee-cup-scheme-11514 and http://www.remondis-aktuell.com/012017/recycling/freiburg-cup-schafft-einwegbecher-ab/
We are also inspired by creative ideas from other countries, such as:
Cafes completely banning disposable coffee cups themselves, see http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-02/can-coffee-shops-ban-disposable-cups-and-stay-in-business/8580030
‘Emergency Mug Walls’ popping up in cafes or community spaces for people to use, https://www.broadsheet.com.au/melbourne/food-and-drink/article/handsome-her-cafe-and-emergency-mug-wall
Discounts on coffee when customers use their own reusable cup. https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/deals-hunter/2017/05/19/how-saving-the-planet-can-save-money-on-your-coffee/
These schemes would work most effectively if a ban on disposable coffee cups was set in motion by the Government and the cafes/shops and public would then develop their own strategies and choices. We don’t believe that expecting the public to take responsibility to find a coffee cup recycling bin in amongst the other bins and rubbish would be effective, and ultimately we need to reduce the need/desire for disposable coffee cups in the first place. Indeed, we understand from Dorset Waste Partnership that contamination for on-street recycling type banks is one of the biggest issues that prevents recycling being more successful so a reduction at source seems the only really sensible and sustainable way to go!
1.7 WWOW Comments on Research
We have recently become aware of this research paper whose findings are in line with our observations in Wimborne Minster. A field experiment to reduce coffee cup waste was undertaken by the Welsh School of Architecture & School of Psychology and published in March 2017. https://orca.cf.ac.uk/99366/1/Coffee%20cup%20summary%20report%20-%20Poortinga%20%28FINAL%29.pdf
Whilst this experiment was small (12 outlets), its findings are interesting. The study used a number of interventions, “Each site received a different intervention, combining environmental messages, providing reusable alternatives and financial incentives to encourage the use of reusable coffee cups”. The conclusion of the experiment is that “This field experiment explored how the use of reusable coffee cups could be encouraged by easily implementable measures. It found that through clear messaging, the provision of reusable alternatives, and financial incentives, the use of reusable coffee cups can be increased by (on average) 2.3 to 12.5%.
The study suggests that that a charge on disposable cups may be more effective than a discount on reusable ones. These results are in line with prospect theory, which suggests that people are more sensitive to losses than to gains when making decisions. A charge on disposable cups (a loss) is therefore more likely to produce behaviour change than a discount on a reusable cup (a gain).
While the increases for the individual measures were modest, greater behaviour change was achieved when multiple measures were combined. The study suggests that in particular the provision of free reusable alternatives in combination with a financial incentive are effective.
However, the experiment was small in scale and introduced at a limited number of sites. While the research has shown that coffee cup waste can be reduced through a number of measures, the results should be used as indicative only. More research is needed to examine the impacts of a wider introduction of a coffee cup charge or other measures.
Based on the results of this research, we estimate that a reduction of broadly 50-300 million disposable coffee cups per year could be achieved if the measures were rolled out across the UK. It is likely that the reduction would be even greater with a mandatory charge on disposable coffee cups at the national level. It then becomes more worthwhile for consumers to adapt to the widespread introduction of the charge by using reusable alternatives.”
1.8 Recommendations
This study was small and if the scheme were to be looked at in conjunction with a Governmental ban on disposable coffee cups, then a larger research project should be undertaken. As we have already begun the groundwork in our town in Dorset we suggest that this should be the town to trial the first scheme of its kind in the UK and we request that money and time be allocated to enable this to happen.
1.9 Conclusion - Government intervention required
If the UK are serious in their commitment to the environmental targets set then action must be taken immediately. Changing the mind-set of the public and demanding that manufacturers and shops and cafes take responsibility for their part is essential alongside a Government boycott and ban of single use plastic items which we feel is urgently required for the UK to seriously tackle the problem that is already out of control, see https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/08/our-plastic-addiction-out-of-control-cut-consumption-now
In the interim period, before a ban comes into place, the UK could follow the example from Saudi Arabia who have now mandated that short life plastics must be made from biodegradable materials https://www.s-ge.com/en/article/news/20173-saudi-arabia-clean-plastic-legislation and this mandate covers various items including: https://www.s-ge.com/sites/default/files/cserver/article/downloads/list-of-pe-and-pp-products-subject-to-regulation-20-4-17.pdf
We are excited by the timely opportunities this Audit Select Committee offers and wish to support the Government to tackle the huge challenges single use plastic and disposable coffee cups pose, but we need time, resources, commitment and interventions as soon as possible in order to tackle this problem quickly and effectively.