We are super excited to introduce our new range of reusable cups, bottles and bags which will form part of our welcome kits for new team members, gifts for our clients and really anyone who wants to join the ‘reuse’ revolution! We have found some really interesting research around the impact of everyday disposable items and are keen to make a different where we can!

Did you know, it’s common for up to 20% of office waste to be made up of disposable cups. Quayclean has recently introduced reusable cups which we are encouraging to be used right across our business. Disposable cups, whether they are made from paper, plastic or polystyrene, demonstrate a significant problem for our environment.

Disposable cups are not recyclable

Typical disposable coffee cups aren’t made from recycled paper. Most cups are manufactured using 100% bleached virgin paperboard and sprayed with a polyethylene coating. Disposable cups are often impregnated with toxic dyes which also make them difficult to recycle. The plastic lining in many disposable cups means they are not easily recycled, and can result in a biodegradation process of 50 years or more. When disposable cups are compostable they need to be placed in actual compost bins, not the garbage to be recycled, otherwise they remain landfill.

Reusable Cup Vs. Disposable cups: How do they compare over time?

Over a year, Reusable Cups use half the carbon, one third of water use and half the energy compared with disposables. These figures reduce further over the expected lifespan of the Reusable Cup of four years. It is estimated, the breakeven with disposables to be as low as 15 uses. If you compare 1 Reusable Cup to 300+ disposable cups used over a year it represents 86 grams of plastic to 900+ grams of plastic contained in disposables.

Impact around the world

Annually over 500 billion disposable cups are manufactured throughout the world, resulting in millions of tonnes of plastic waste.