The Problem: 2.5 billion coffee cups are thrown away each year in the UK and uptake of re-usable cups has been minimal.
The Solution: Target coffee lovers not environmentalists with a new design of coffee cup that leads people not to be seen dead with a paper cup.
2.5 billion cups, enough to stretch around the world multiple times, are thrown away each year in the UK, creating mountains of rubbish and using natural resources in an unsustainable way.
A wide range of solutions have been tried out, many of which focus on recycling, which is difficult to do because the lining inside a cup means it can only be recycled in specific facilities that can separate the lining from the rest of the paper cup, enabling the paper to be recycled. Even if it does work, it is still a huge amount of resource that will go into making and recycling these cups.
Other efforts have therefore been focused on increasing the uptake of reusable coffee cups, with many cafes offering discounts to those who use re-usable cups. However, in spite of these discounts, the impact has been minimal.
Part of the problem is that reusable cups have been marketed on green and sustainability messages, so only appeal to those with a passion for those topics and who are aware of the impact of coffee cups. As cups need washing out and are more bulky than plastic bags, financial incentives have been less effective.
The solution therefore seems to be to target a different pressure point. I propose that rather than focusing on sustainability messages, we should focus on great coffee messaging. In the same way that no-one drinks wine out of a paper cut because they would be considered by those around them to be a heretic/Neanderthal, we need to do the same for coffee.
The simple tagline is something like, ‘nothing worth drinking comes in a paper cup’.
A new cup would be designed which is scientifically proven to improve the taste of coffee; integrated into its design would be features that cannot be replicated by paper cups. Further science would show that coffee in paper cups tastes worse than in a mug, re-enforcing the message that anyone that considers themselves to be a coffee connoisseur would not be seen dead with a paper cup.
The new cups would be sold at premium prices and their use instructions would include some key elements to improve usability that would be written in the language of improving taste, for example stating that the mug should be rinsed with boiling water before and after use to warm the cup and then get rid of latent tastes. Coffee shops would therefore have to install hot water rinsers or risk losing customers, meaning the infrastructure to make the adoption of these cups widespread would be in place quickly, overcoming the issue of dirty cups, for example.
Furthermore, as carrying cups around is a hassle but paper cups would not do the job, more shops would likely start deposit schemes for their customers.
The key point is that sustainability is not the most powerful message, fashion and fear of looking a fool is much stronger; it worked for wine, now we need to make it work for coffee.
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