Moreton Hall café helps customers reduce waste with their Keep Cups

Meet Lucy and Jess, business partners at The Coffee House, a popular café in the heart of Moreton Hall, which itself is a busy housing development on the edge of Bury St Edmunds.

When I dropped in with the family on Day 1 of Zero Waste Week, I warned them that Id start talking to them about ways in which they help customers reduce waste. I was particularly interested in the success of the Keep Cups that they sell, i.e. the reusable coffee cups, as shown in the photo below.

I noticed that theyd been selling these since the café opened in October last year. Priced at £7.99 for a small cup and £9.99 for the larger one, whenever a customer brings in their reusable cup, they receive 10% off the price of their drink.

The reusable cups have been a real success for the café.  Jess confirmed that theyve sold approximately 250 since they opened last autumn and normally have around 10 customers popping in with them each day.  As we were chatting I realised that I was holding up one of their customers whod dropped in for coffee and when I turned around, I couldnt help but notice that there in her hand was one of the reusable cups that wed been discussing.

(Charlotte, a Keep Cup customer)

Of course once the coffee discussion was over, my seven year old naturally brought my attention to his Zero Waste choice of the day....a selection of sweets from the sweetie jars on the counter.

The rest of his purchase wasnt quite ZW though.  Even though he declared hed try and reuse the straw from his small carton of orange juice and thatd hed be sure to recycle the little box, theres not a lot you can do with the protective plastic wrapper. However, that was negligible compared to the Capri Suns that he bought at the weekend and all round was pretty much of a success.  Im not sure about his older brother though, who insisted on the plastic straw to go with his favourite chocolate milkshake. Unless he reuses that a few times over, hes already behind in the rubbish stakes.


So if youre ever visiting Moreton Hall, whether its during Zero Waste Week or another time, be sure to pop into The Coffee House, where youll always get a very warm welcome and a discount if youve got your own cup.  And if youre a keen gardener, you can take away some free coffee grounds for your compost too.  Now that is a bargain!

The Coffee House, Moreton Hall, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

More information about The Coffee House can be found via their Twitter stream @thecoffeehouse5 or their Facebook account.

If youre a regular coffee drinker whos looking for a replacement to disposable cups or run a café and are interested in saving landfill waste too, check out the reusable cups that are available at www.keepcup.com as well as the BYOcups that are sold by Onya. 

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This post was written as part of National Zero Waste Week 2011, thats taking place between 5-11 September. The theme this year is Reducing waste away from home.  For further details visit http://myzerowaste.com/zero-waste-week-2011/

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To achieve Zero Waste we MUST keep focusing on the target

The future of waste is something thats been on my mind lately, not least because tomorrow I will be attending my first board of trustees meeting of the Zero Waste Alliance UK.  Ive also got several exciting projects coming up over the next few weeks, which will highlight how our culture is changing.

My mind goes back to 2008, when I volunteered to take part in my first Zero Waste Week challenge. Despite my enthusiasm, I thought I must have had a screw loose for trying it.  I worried that people would think I was a weirdo and as for the reducing waste so drastically, I didnt think it was possible. 

But the results of the challenge showed otherwise and, at the time, shocked me.

I realise now that my pre-challenge assumptions were based on limiting judgements, lack of knowledge and embedded habits, as well as expectations that fitted well within my comfort zone.  Consequently, when I first signed up for the challenge, I confessed to the council that the best I could commit to during Zero Waste Week would be a carrier bags worth of rubbish.  It was a comfortable target.  With such a busy family lifestyle, it felt far more realistic than producing an empty bin. And to be honest, knowing how much rubbish we threw away before that, I knew Id be happy and proud to declare such an achievement.

But this declaration was 8 weeks before the Zero Waste Week.  I was unaware of the discoveries I would make in the coming months, including the recycling solutions that were continually improving, or how I could take control over reducing waste that could not be recycled.  As my knowledge grew during those few weeks, my assumptions changed and so did the horizon of the challenge that lay ahead.

With my limiting judgements being sledge-hammered into oblivion, thanks to my new knowledge, experiences and conviction, I was able to look afresh at the Zero Waste target and the goal looked more easily attainable. Thats how during that week in March 2008, we only came to throw out a plaster.  And thats how those who took part in the Rubbish Diet Challenge that I set at the beginning of the year, also came out with fabulous results.

Thats the power of the target, no matter whether its zero waste or any other personal usiness goal.
 
And this is why we must keep the focus on zero waste and underpin it with a commitment to learn, innovate and improve the processes and solutions that help us move towards that goal.

Zero waste isnt just about recycling more, its about not creating that waste in the first place.

Whether youre a designer developing your next product or packaging, a buyer for your own business or a large retail chain, an events manager organising the smallest of events, or a householder who thinks you have nothing at all to do with the waste stream, you can make your own contribution towards a zero waste future whoever you are.

Even if all you do for now is take a proper read of your councils latest leaflet or your companys waste management policy, that is a key step to recharting the future of waste.  As a resident, you may find new services that you never realised existed and begin to recycle more as well as reduce other waste. As a designer or buyer you may discover that the future of your product can only be landfill and decide to design-out that waste.  Or if youre organising an event based on plastic cutlery or polystyrene, you may decide to consider alternatives that could help make your event waste free.

By setting yourself a zero waste target now, even if you dont think it is achievable, it will kickstart your interest and your inner innovation.  Then once your learning curve is underway and you become satisfied with your progress, a sustainable zero waste future will become more attainable, and youll be ready to pounce on any new technologies or services that become available or more easily respond to legislative pressures.

Sometimes, all it takes is a little imagination to want to do things differently and great results can be achieved, such as that shown in the business case study here or illustrated by community based programmes that include WasteWatchs Our Common Place, or the examples demonstrated by individual contributors to MyZeroWaste.

You just need to keep that target in mind, even if it feels like it will take you five years to get there.

So begin now, by setting yourself the target, learn, innovate accordingly, reap the benefits of interim successes and review regularly.

I strongly believe youll get there, even if you need the genius of scientistsdesigners to help you or invigorated markets to drive the demand for recycled goods.


As a society,  if we focus on the target, the road to zero waste and closed loop recycling will always remain open and all other diversions will become closed.

Anything else, can only be second best and is less than our future deserves.


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Useful websites to feed your inspiration:

www.wrap.org.uk
www.lovefoodhatewaste.com
www.recyclenow.com
www.wastewatch.org.uk
www.myzerowaste.com
www.feeding5k.org

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