Submitted by Peter Lumb on Thu, 2015-12-17 16:20
How have the University stopped 382kg of waste from being sent to landfill, saved 28,617mj of energy, and preserved 11 mature trees worth of carbon? Simple - by reusing cups! It’s all thanks to the University Catering Service team, who were looking to find a practical, easy way to reduce waste and carbon emissions. They decided to purchase refillable travel mugs, to reduce the supply of disposable cups used by staff and students, when purchasing hot drinks from many of the University’s cafes. It was believed that significant savings could be made in consumable expenditure and waste disposal. The figures show this is certainly the case - in total during the 2104/15 academic year, 27,280 disposable cups were saved due to the scheme, that’s almost one saved for every student and staff member at the University!
The use of high quality refillable cups have encouraged the support and participation of students and staff in this sustainability initiative, and to ensure the success of the scheme it was decided that the cups needed to be sold at less than cost. This was helped with a subsidy provided from trading surpluses made by the cafes. So the next time you visit a University cafe remember to purchase or bring your exisiting travel mug - a 20p per cup discount is offered each time you use one!