The Circular Returnable Cup
After just 2 uses, the CO2 emission of the Circular Returnable Cup are offset versus a single-use alternative. This means that huge amounts of CO2 never reaches our atmosphere.
People in the UK get through at least 2.5 billion disposable cups each year. Switching to a returnable cup eliminates billions of cups from landfill.
Your new Circular Returnable Cup is designed to last over 500 wash cycles, which is 1.5 years of your daily coffee. The Circular Returnable cup is 100% recyclable up to 6 times, meaning no new material is required for 9 years.
Most Sustainable:
- Made from 100% recycled content*.
- 100% recyclable at end of life.
- Designed and built to last.
Most Cost Effective
- Low cost to produce
- Excellent durability
- Designed to last 500+ cycles.
- Reliably produced at scale with a simple, controllable design. Dual sourced.
Premium Coffee Experience:
- Reduced wastage costs & littering
- Durable, long lasting branding options.
- Aesthetic appeal: Critical and often overlooked, to get high engagement and change behaviour.
SMART Cup
- QR and/or RFID enabled with complete flexibility of tags
- Partners in place to deliver digital cup solution
A business serving 500 cups of coffee per day, 7 days a week would use 175,000 single use cups a year costing £21k and producing 10.658kg CO2e
Replacing this with 2,275 Returnable Circular Cups in year 1 at a cost of £2.5k, plus £350 per year washing costs,
SAVES
£20k per year (compared to disposable cups)
Diverts 175,000 single use cups from landfill weighing 3.5 tonnes!
Assumptions:
Single use cup cost £0.12 Returnable cup cost £1.10 Loss rate @ 1%/day
Washing 50 cups per cycle at 10p per cycle. Assumes trading 50 weeks per year. Weight of single-use cup and lid 20grams
Returnable Cup System
At Circular&Co. we’re supporting local communities, groups and businesses to make circularity accessible for everyone. We can help organisations create impactful ‘Returnable Cup Schemes’ where customers can loan a reusable cup for a small deposit, usually complete with their favourite beverage at a discounted rate. Once used, their cup can be returned and refunded or kept in exchange for the original deposit.
The Lost Gardens of Heligan are one of Cornwall’s premier tourist destinations with over 3000 visitors a day – as you can imagine, that means a lot of tea and coffee! Circular&Co’s NOW Cup offered the perfect product for a reusable cup scheme where customers could return the cup at the end of their visit and redeem a deposit, or for them to keep their branded NOW Cup as a souvenir – the low price point encouraged easy adoption among visitors and helped spread information on the benefits of circularity.
Click here to view our project breakdown.
Love Topsham is a community group based in Devon that contacted Circular&Co. with the aim of fostering a reusable cup scheme. They aimed to reduce the 10,000 single-use cups estimated to be left behind each week in outdoor spaces. Coffee cup litter had become heightened by the covid crisis and increased visitors to the area with limited access to bins. With the support of partnering local businesses, the uptake of their Circular NOW Cups and subsequent waste reduction has been very positive.
Click here for more information on the project.
