Less disposable packaging, more reuse
As long as you throw your single-use coffee cup neatly into the bin, you are doing a good job, right? The material of the cup, the production process, the logistics: it is all set in motion for the fifteen minutes you drink from it, only to throw it away afterwards. That is why reuse is usually a lot more sustainable!
Annually, we throw away more than 7 billion cups, tubs and bags in the Netherlands. These are disposable packaging made of plastic and paper, for all kinds of drinks, snacks and meals. Half of them end up in the incinerator, while another part ends up as litter in nature. We can only tackle this growing problem by bringing about a systemic change. An indispensable strategy for this is reusing packaging on a much larger scale. By using packaging longer and more intensively, fewer new packages and raw materials are needed, and less waste is generated.
Why recycling is not the solution
That recycling those single-use coffee cups is not the best solution comes as a surprise to many people. In recent years, the focus of the government and the business community has mainly been on recycling plastic and packaging. It is mostly proclaimed that recycling is the way to go! That is why we now produce many coffee cups, ship them from A to B, drink coffee from them and throw them away.
And what happens to them then? Contrary to what you might think, no new cups are made from them, but toilet paper, paper towels or plant trays. This is, however, only possible if the cups are collected separately and clean, without any leftover coffee, tea bags, spoons or other waste. And then the cups also have to be made of a single material. Otherwise, recycling them becomes difficult, and those collected cups will still, oops, go straight into the incinerator.
Reuse is at the top of the R-ladder as one of the most important strategies. In a circular economy, reuse is a crucial concept aimed at extending the lifespan of products by using them again. The main goal of reuse is to reduce waste, conserve natural resources and minimise environmental impact by keeping products in circulation for as long as possible. This also contributes to a reduction in litter.
