Coffee lovers in Malahide and Rush are in for a perk this summer. The two North Co Dublin communities are spearheading an ambitious bid by Fingal to become Ireland’s first single-use cup-free county in Ireland. Beverage drinkers there are in line for a discount for their efforts.
Inspired by the hugely successful Killarney Cup Project in Co Kerry, which has already kept over a million disposable cups out of the bin in just one year, Fingal County Council has set its sights on making the administrative area single-use cup free by 2026. Rush and Malahide have been chosen to pilot the project.
The hope is that the Fingal Reusable Cup Project will make the blight of takeaway coffee cup waste in these seaside towns a thing of the past.
Supported by environmental charity Voice, passionate volunteers from both communities have been visiting local businesses and running information events since last year. Rush Tidy Towns, Malahide Lions Club, St Sylvester’s Parish Council, Malahide Chamber of Commerce and Malahide Tidy Towns have been to the fore in rallying support.
The response from local retailers has been overwhelmingly positive, organisers say, showing that the communities are ready for change.
To date, 47 cafes across Fingal, 11 of which are based in Rush and 36 in Malahide, have committed to participating in the Fingal Reusable Cup Project.
In Killarney, it’s mostly independent coffee shops that have stepped up to the plate. Some big retailers with self-service machines, however, have lagged, refusing to ditch paper cups. Malahide and Rush will be hoping for better engagement.
Beverage drinkers will have three ways to take part. You can sit in and drink your coffee from a real cup; you can bring your own reusable cup to get a discount on your coffee; or, if you’ve forgotten your cup and want to take a beverage away, you can borrow a reusable cup for free.
[ Latte levy: ‘Now, you’d be ashamed to be seen with a disposable cup’Opens in new window ]
Participating coffee shops are offering reusable takeaway cups from social enterprise Vytal. Vytal cups can be returned to any participating coffee shop. Do it within 14 days and the cup is free; otherwise you’ll be charged €9. This seems a lot, but it’s why Vytal cups have such a high return rate.
Where a deposit is too low and the cups do not have a high value, customers end up hanging on to them and taking more home. There’s little point replacing a glut of disposable cups with a glut of reusable cups.
The project makes sense for businesses too. Disposable coffee cups cost them at least 15 cent each. Compostable cups can cost 25 cent or more. Vytal’s reusable cups will only ever cost coffee shops 15 cent. For the six-month pilot, Vytal is giving retailers the cups for free. After the pilot, each time a cup is scanned out to a customer, it will cost the retailer 15 cent.
The introduction of a “latte levy” later this year makes this a good time for the Fingal project. The 20 cent tax on disposable coffee cups aims to deter Irish consumers from dumping half a million disposable cups a day.
The cost of a disposable cup and the levy on it means about 45 cent of your coffee could soon be packaging costs. Takeaway coffee drinkers at participating businesses in Malahide and Rush will be spared at least some of this.
In addition to consumer and business savings, there are plenty of benefits to going disposable cup-free. The cups are among the top three most littered items, according to the annual Irish Business Against Litter report.
“We believe that, in time, society will view disposable cups much like we now view plastic bags: a dirty habit we were right to leave behind,” says Voice.
[ ‘Latte levy‘ will halt dumping of 500,000 cups a day, says GovernmentOpens in new window ]
Only 1 per cent of cups marked as “recyclable” end up being completely recycled, according to the Killarney Coffee Cup Project. The rest never make it to a recycling facility.
Drinking from a reusable cup means you know you are doing the right thing. Vytal’s tracking technology means Malahide and Rush will see in real time just how many disposable cups they are sparing.
There’s the community cohesion that can come from working together towards an impressive goal too. Malahide and Rush will deserve a cuppa.
