As MPs are told that coffee shops are not doing enough to deal with the billions of disposable cups that are thrown away in the UK each year, Stephens Scown is playing its part by giving reuseable coffee cups to staff.
The influential environment audit committee heard yesterday (10 October 2017) that the growth of coffee on-the-go has meant that 2.5 billion disposable cups are thrown away each year in the UK. That number is expected to rise to around 3 billion by 2025 and currently only 1 per cent are being recycled.
Initially inspired by Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall’s “War on Waste”, Chris Morse, a legal executive at Stephens Scown persuaded his bosses to introduce reusable coffee cups.
Chris said: “The numbers of these disposable coffee cups being thrown away is staggering – it is almost 5,000 a minute, or 7 million per day. The plastic lining in cups means they cannot be recycled in normal depots and there are only three dedicated recycling mills for them at the moment. It makes sense that reuseable cups are the answer. That is why I suggested to our managing partner that Stephens Scown could play its part.”
Based on Chris’s suggestion the firm has introduced reusable thermal coffee cups for staff. The cost is covered by the firm, and each staff member made a donation of £2.50 for each cup to the firm’s former charity of the year Children’s Hospice South West.
Stephens Scown’s managing partner Robert Camp said: “We were really supportive of Chris’s suggestion. One of our big campaigns is called Love Where You Live and it is all about celebrating the great businesses and things to do in Devon and Cornwall. Part of our responsibility as a big local employer is to play our part in keeping this area beautiful and reducing our impact on it. This is such a simple idea, but over time it will mean thousands fewer disposable cups being used and thrown away by our staff.”