15 Oct 2023 at 05:28
Offices, amusement parks and hospitals do not yet know how they will replace the disposable cup if it is banned in January, according to a tour by NU.nl. Educational institutions have already gained some experience: “Mug theft is decreasing.”
From January 2024, the disposable cup may only be used in places where coffee is really to go, such as a train station. Where drinks are consumed on site, disposable cups will soon be prohibited. Think of office buildings, amusement parks and educational institutions.
But many companies do not yet know how they will get their visitors to drink coffee. Will there be trade-in cups, more dishwashers and free reusable bottles? Many locations have no idea yet.
Places with many visitors face a challenge, notes the owner of Seats2Meet Utrecht. Marcel Nicolaas’ company has been working with porcelain mugs instead of disposable cups for a few months. He receives an average of 350 people every day who have rented a meeting room or workplace.
Purchasing roughly seven hundred mugs will save about a thousand wasted cups per day, Nicolaas estimates. But it does take more man-hours. After a meeting, all mugs must be collected and washed. Even after lunch there is a whole bunch of dirty mugs. “It all seems simple, but you have to adjust your staff schedule accordingly,” says Nicolaas.
Why a ban on disposable cups?
Plastic litter is increasing every year. The European Union has drawn up a directive to ensure that less plastic ends up in the waste. Member states can decide for themselves how they contribute to this.
In the Netherlands, nineteen million disposable cups and containers are thrown away every day after single use. Disposable cups are partly made of plastic, so they are waterproof.
Bring your own coffee mug to Efteling
Another place with many visitors is the hospital. Healthcare institutions are given more scope to assess for themselves where recycling is responsible. If cross-contamination can occur somewhere, the cups can be thrown in the trash after one use. But the largest, public part of the hospital does not fall under this exception rule.
The Groningen hospital UMCG has announced that from January there will no longer be disposable cups from their vending machines. “No decision has yet been made about exactly how we are going to do this,” a spokesperson said. Employees should bring their own mug as much as possible, which he says is already happening.
Amusement parks also do not yet know how to replace the disposable cup. “Behind the scenes, we are certainly looking at all the possibilities and challenges with regard to the new legislation,” says a spokesperson for Efteling. In any case, visitors will soon be able to bring their own cup to fill on the spot, he says.
The Walibi Holland amusement park cannot yet provide clarity. The ideas about an alternative to the disposable cup are still “in development”.
‘Mug theft has been reduced’
The end of the disposable cup seems to be a lot easier to collect in buildings where the same people often visit. Tens of thousands of employees from various ministries will soon receive their own “sustainably produced, reusable cup”, a spokesperson said. Visitors can borrow one.
Various educational institutions are already anticipating the legislation. The University of Amsterdam (UvA) and the University of Twente (UT) started this academic year with a new system. At the start of the school year, the UT sold leak-proof cups to students at a reasonable price. “It is now the standard here to bring your own cup,” says a UT spokesperson. That saves 900,000 disposable cups per year.
But it still took some getting used to. “Beautiful mugs were regularly stolen from the staff areas,” the spokesperson said. Most people now seem to have their own cup in their bag. “Mug theft has been significantly reduced,” he says. If you are without it, you can get a mug in the coffee corner.
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Free lemonade in a reusable bottle
MBO vocational school Nimeto in Utrecht has even been free of disposable cups and PET bottles for two years. “We wanted to reduce our waste volume earlier,” says a spokesperson.
Every student receives a coffee cup and a Dopper bottle at the start of the first year. There are also visitor mugs that sometimes disappear. Employees receive a mug with their own name on it. “If they hand it in at the canteen at the end of the day, the mug will be ready clean the next day,” says the spokesperson.
To avoid hassle with PET bottles and deposits, the school has purchased a lemonade machine instead of a soft drink machine. “Students can tap sugar-free lemonade for free in their Dopper,” says the spokesperson.
Manufacturer of disposable cups looks across the border
The company behind the online shop Goedkopekoffiebekers.nl is skeptical about the ban. “I estimate that half of our customers will continue to work with disposable cups,” says Erik Landsheer of Van de Velde Packaging. Every year the company sells around 800 million disposable cups to government institutions, multinationals and car garages, among others.
Landsheer does help its Dutch customers with recyclable cups if they want. “Although I don’t support it,” he says. According to him, the disposable cups almost never end up as litter and they are also becoming increasingly biodegradable.
Landsheer now says it is selling more disposable cups in other EU countries. The rules regarding waste are also becoming stricter there, but according to him not as strict as in the Netherlands.
2023-10-15 03:28:39
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