Reusable coffee cups have become a common accessory for many Sydneysiders, but a new scheme being rolled out by the Western Sydney Regional Organisation is making it even easier to be eco-minded when it comes to your morning caffeine fix.
The impact of plastic waste on wildlife, particularly marine animals, is an important issue for anyone concerned about humanity’s influence on the natural environment.
Some of the most prevalent of these wasteful plastics are coffee lids – more than a billion of them are binned in Australian every year. In a city like Sydney, where coffee isn’t merely a nice beverage but a way of life, the potential for a major reduction in disposable lid use is tantalising.
Several Sydney councils are now chasing this goal by participating in a scheme aiming to reduce coffee-lid use, and should it be widely adopted, the concept could be adapted to phase out several other types of plastics used by the food industry in the future.
Green Caffeen is a twist on the reusable cup model. Using a simple app to locate participating cafés, consumers can collect a reusable cup when they order their coffee (or any other drink) and then return it to any Green Caffeen café within 30 days, no washing up required. It’s completely free to use, and with a growing number of cafés signing up to be on the scheme – 420 nationwide, 160 of them in Sydney – uptake of the Green Caffeen reusable cup system has already reached 11,000 people.
To find out if your local coffee joint is a Green Caffeen café download the app or check here.
Looking for more ways to be proactive about protecting the environment? Checkout these bushfire crisis fundraisers in Sydney.