Waking up to the impacts of coffee
How many cups of coffee do you drink in a day? Perhaps you have one in the morning to get you going, and one as an afternoon pick-me-up. Or maybe you’re tempted to get one whenever you pass your favourite cafe. For Australians, and Melbournians in particular, the ritual of ‘grabbing a coffee’ is ingrained in our daily routines. It’s something we do on the way to work, or as a go-to social activity. But have you ever stopped to think about the impact that your daily coffee might be having on the environment?
Unsurprisingly, coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world. According to consumer advocacy group Choice, Australians alone consume more than 50,000 cups of coffee every half hour, using an estimated one billion takeaway coffee cups every year.
That’s around 2,700,000 takeaway cups going to landfill everyday in Australia, and according to Planet Ark, the plastic components of these cups can take around 50 years to break down.
With 28% of Australians drinking three or more cups of coffee a day, the thought of all those takeaway cups piling up in landfill is enough to shock anyone awake, more effectively than that morning latté. And while we’re not about to suggest that you stop drinking coffee, it’s time to rethink the way we consume our favourite caffeinated beverage.
Reusable coffee cups are a popular option for those wanting to lessen the impact of their coffee habit. Reusable cups are hardly a new concept, (Australian reusable cup company KeepCup has been in operation since 2009), but as the ever-mounting piles of takeaway cups show, many of us are still struggling to adopt the idea of the reusable cup. Remembering to bring your own cup out and about with you everyday can be a little inconvenient, which can prove to be a major barrier for some. So, what can we do to have our coffee and drink it too, proverbially speaking?
Cafe owner Caspian has always tried to live a low impact life. Since taking over South Yarra’s ‘Very Melbourne Coffee Van’ in September 2018, he’s been trying to make it easier for his customers to do the same. This is why he’s introduced the HuskeeCup and the HuskeeSwap program to his business.
Launched in 2018, the HuskeeCup is a reusable coffee cup made from coffee husks, an organic waste material that is produced at the milling stage of coffee production, and would otherwise end up in landfill. The cups are now sold, used and swapped at cafes around Australia, as well as a handful of locations in North America and Europe, with many opting to be a part of the HuskeeSwap program.
“I think it (the HuskeeSwap program) inspires people to start using a reusable cup because they don’t have to wash it,” says Caspian.
As part of the HuskeeSwap program, coffee drinkers bring a HuskeeCup and lid to a participating cafe, order their coffee and get it served to them in a fresh HuskeeCup. The cafe takes care of cleaning of the old cup, meaning if you’re someone who always forgets to repack your reusable cup once you’ve washed it, you can leave your HuskeeCup somewhere you’re more likely to remember it, such as the car or the office.
Caspian’s customers have been getting used to the system. “At first people were a bit strange about it, because of the concept of not owning the cup. You own part of a system, and not the individual cup. But I tell them, just imagine you’re drinking from a coffee cup in a cafe. That gets used by hundreds and thousands of people. The only difference is you’re taking it away with you. That’s all it is,” he says.
For Caspian, introducing the HuskeeCup at his cafe was a no-brainer: “It’s such an intelligent and well thought out product, it’s amazing no one did it before. The aesthetic is appealing, but it’s also the logic of it… It’s a closed loop, having the bean husks as the base product of the cup. You’re drinking coffee out of coffee. It’s brilliant, really.”
And Caspian’s eco efforts don’t just stop with coffee cups. He’s also trying to encourage customers to bring their own plates for takeaway food. “I sometimes give out plates to customers if they’re close by, instead of takeaway containers, so they can take their toasties to the office and bring it back. And I try and entice people to bring their own plate,” says Caspian.
He certainly isn’t alone. There are lots of other Aussie iniviaties stepping up to try and make coffee more sustainable. For pod coffee drinkers, there’s the TerraCycle program that allows people to mail in their used coffee pods free of charge, so the aluminium can be recycled into other products. There’s also Pod and Parcel, a Melbourne based company producing biodegradable and compostable coffee pods. Businesses such as Reground and Life Cykle are collecting coffee grounds from cafes in order to fertilise vegetables, and more and more cafes are ditching plastic straws in favour of stainless steel or bamboo reusable options.
Caspian also believes that the onus shouldn’t be solely on the customer. “I think because we (cafe owners) know how much wastage goes out, even when we might not want to throw it away… so I think it’s our responsibility to provide options. You know, we’ll happily take our own carry bag to the supermarket so I think we should be able to take our own plate or container to a cafe. In fact today was the first day that someone brought their own plate to get a toastie, so that was really good,” he says.
