New returnable coffee cup scheme launching in Cardiff aims to help reduce waste

  • Video report by Issa Farfour

A new returnable coffee cup scheme will be launching in the Welsh capital next month to help reduce waste and tackle littering across the city.

The Cardiff Refill Return Cup scheme is the first-of-its-kind in Wales and enables people to ‘borrow’ a reusable takeaway cup from a participating café and return it so that it can be washed and used again and again.

It will roll out across cafes in the city from 4 October.

The scheme has been delivered by FOR Cardiff with the help of £90,000 funding from the UK government through the Shared Prosperity Fund.

Cafes and coffee shops across the city will sign up to the scheme and will be provided with a stock of the reusable cups. Credit: FOR Cardiff

FOR Cardiff has partnered with environmental charity City to Sea whose Refill app will enable people to find locations to pick up and drop off a reusable cup.

The pilot phase of the scheme will run until the end of March 2025 and aims to reduce waste and tackle pollution and littering across the city.

The impact of the scheme will be measured and evaluated by the Greenwich Business School at the University of Greenwich and the Cardiff Business School at Cardiff University, in hopes that the data will help to provide a blueprint for future schemes across the UK.

An estimated 2.5 billion takeaway coffee cups are used and thrown away each year in the UK - enough to stretch around the world five and a half times if placed end to end - and 99% of these are currently not recycled.

The UK uses 10,000 coffee cups every two minutes.

Cardiff cafes and coffee shops who have so far signed up to be part of the scheme include Waterloo Tea in Wyndham Arcade, Pettigrew Bakeries, Da Coffee and, Bird & Blend Tea.

Each venue has committed to offering a minimum of 15p discount on the price of a coffee for anyone using the Cardiff Refill Return Cup scheme.

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