Yesterday, The Cup Fund scheme was launched at Marylebone and Cavendish Campus, offering coffee cup recycling points and a reverse vending machine to increase the amount of paper cups recycled in the UK.
The University of Westminster has been granted funding from ‘The Cup Fund’ in partnership with our waste management and recycling contractors, Bywaters. The Cup Fund is a new initiative to scale paper cup recycling, since currently only 4 per cent of paper cups are recycled.
The launch of The Cup Fund recycling scheme has seen orange coffee cup recycling bins distributed across Westminster campuses. At Marylebone Campus, a reverse vending machine has also been introduced. Instead of putting money into the machine and receiving a product, the user puts a coffee cup into the machine to be recycled.
The reverse vending machine operates in a lucky dip style, meaning that some users will win a £20 voucher for a selected eco-friendly store, such as Planet Organic or Lush.
Talking about the launch of the initiative, Environment & Sustainability Manager Katherine Bojczuk said: “The Sustainability Team has been working hard to make improvements to the way the University operates so we can ensure we are constantly reducing our environmental impacts.
“We have had a lot of colleagues and students ask what we can do to reduce single-use coffee cup waste, and so we hope that by taking part in The Cup Fund we can make a significant impact.”
Sign up to the new Sustainability Champions Network by emailing [email protected].
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