Love coffee, hate cup waste?

Please be advised that, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, our Cup Movement campaign is officially on hold. If you are interested in reducing cup waste, either now or in the future, please contact us for an update.

Making reuse and recycling the norm is essential if we are to address the waste created by single-use cups.

Currently, three out of four people in Glasgow buy drinks in single-use cups, but only 12% are able to recycle them properly. Only 19% of people ever use a reusable cup.

Cup Movement is teaming up with some of the biggest coffee retailers in Glasgow in an effort to increase cup reuse and recycling rates in their stores.

Look out for the Cup Movement sticker in store windows and find out more below.

Promoting reuse

Using a reusable cup is the most impactful way to reduce cup waste. A regular coffee drinker could save up to 250 single-use cups from going to waste each year. And if just 1 in 10 people switch to a reusable cup, that could save up to 47 million single-use cups from being used and discarded annually.

Our retailer partners are supporting reuse in a number of ways:

Many offer a 20-25p discount on drinks purchased using a reusable cup.
Starbucks are trialing the so-called latte-levy, with a 5p charge added to any purchase using a single-use cup.
Costa and Greggs also sell low-cost reusable cups that can be purchased as part of your drink.

So, why not #ChooseToReuse next time you're getting a take-away drink?

Don't have a reusable cup?

Get started with your very own Glasgow Cup Movement rCup, made from recycled cups!

Get a discount through our website.

Find out more

Recycling your cup

Paper cups -the most common type of single-use cup- are difficult to recycle and must be collected and processed separately. You may have noticed that they are generally excluded from mixed recycling collections, such as the Glasgow city centre blue on-the-go recycling bins.

So, what to do?

We are working on making cup recycling more widely available, but in the meantime, many large retailers are already leading the way with cup collection and recycling facilities inside their stores.

Whether or not you purchased your cup in one of these stores, you can #TakeItBack for recycling.

Costa

Starbucks

Pret

McDonald's

Cup Movement map

There are more than 100 locations in the Glasgow where you can #takeitback and #choosetoreuse. Find your nearest one using the map below:

If you collect cups for recycling in your business, operate reuse promotions or are taking action to reduce cup waste in any other way please get in touch. We'd love to hear from you.