Are We Really Protecting the Environment with Our Reusable Cups?

 “An iced americano, please.”

“We offer a drink in a reusable cup for environmental protection.”

This is what we commonly hear at a café these days. As disposable plastic waste has increased since the COVID-19 outbreak, disposable cups are restricted at stores and are replaced with reusable ones such as mug cups or thermos. In fact, this movement began a while ago, but the targets were limited to cafés and their customers. Now, it is widely and rapidly applied to public organizations or companies.

Then, what kinds of changes does the replacement bring to the environment?

Reusable cup campaigns

Public institutions and local governments are carrying forward environmental campaigns to reduce the use of disposable products and many of them include the introduction of a reusable cup system.

As a part of ESG management practices, companies implemented a reusable cup sharing system at their in-company café, and movie theaters and universities also make various attempts to reduce single-use plastic cups. Here are more details on-site!

 

1. Public institution

<Source: Changwon-si website>

1) Changwon-si held a campaign ‘No disposable cups’ in the government building in 2019 and the city began a pilot project named ‘Changwon DolDol Cup’ this year. The local government entered into an agreement with cafes around the office and made reusable ‘Doldol Cup’. During the project, customers may get their drinks in the cup and return them in a collection box placed in the assigned café. The local Rehabilitation Center then collects and washes the products and delivers them back to the stores. The campaign primarily is subject to civil servants, setting a good example regarding the reduction of single-use products.

<Source: Busan City Office of Education> 

2) Busan Dongnae Office of Education began a campaign ‘Environmental Protection 3GO!’. The campaign aims to reduce disposable products, increase reusable products, and save the ecosystem. A thermos is provided to every employer and a paper cup-like mug cup is displayed to promote the use of reusable cups. Many participants shared positive feedback about the project, for these changes make them feel they do something better for the environment.

 

2. Company

<Source: KB Kookmin Card Website>

1) KB Kookmin Card, one of the 4 major commercial banks in Korea, concluded an agreement with Jongno District in Seoul for the ‘Go on a CO₂ diet with Reusable Cup’ project and is going to provide all the drinks from their café in a ‘1.5℃ cup’. The cup means to prevent the temperature rise within 1.5℃ to overcome the climate crisis. Post-consumer cups are cleaned by a professional dish-washing company for reuse. As the business is propelled by the cooperation between a private company and a governmental office, it is expected to be another efficient way to work for the climate crisis.

<Source: CGV website>

2) CGV, the largest film distributor in Korea, ran a pilot operation with reusable cups at some branches. Customers may choose to get their drink in either a single-use cup or a reusable cup at a snack bar. After watching a movie, they return the cup into a separate collecting box and a washing company collects and washes them. When a customer purchases a drink with a reusable cup, they may push a button for ‘busting score’ which shows how many disposable products are saved, visualizing their participation for environmental protection.

<Source: Amore Pacific website>

3) Beauty industry also tries to come up with a solution to reduce plastics by ‘Refill Station’. Customers now can fill in cosmetics as much as they want into a specially designed refill container without a cosmetic consultant’s assistance. Various products including shampoos, conditioners, liquid soap, and body washes are available and there are 19 refill stations found in Korea, and 7 of them are doing a trial run for 2 years. Korean FDA is planning to provide relevant guidelines to secure quality, safety as well hygiene at these refill stores. It is expected to draw some positive results as customers can purchase even a small amount of cosmetic and plastic waste shall be reduced for reusing a container.  

 

3. University

<Source: Jeonbuk University website>

Jeonju-si, located in the southern part of Korea, began a reusable cup sharing service with cafes around Jeonbuk University. The joined cafes offer a drink in a reusable cup called ‘Zefree(Zero plastic + Plastic-free) and customers return the cup to the cafes or collecting boxes in the university. They are offering 1 coupon for using the cup and 10 coupons can be exchanged for a thermos for an event to attract students’ interest and participation.

 

Popularization of reusable cups and what to be considered for it to be the right solution

As we reviewed above, many public institutions and private corporations are actively running similar campaigns to bring positive changes to the ecosystem and the environment.

Then, what should be considered for the use of reusable cups and thermos to be really environmentally friendly? What should be done to secure hygiene and safety as food containers?

First, Environment-friendly property: use them more than 200 times?

The coffee industry encourages customers to use a reusable cup by giving discounts on drinks or even free thermos through an event. One well-known café suggests using a reusable cup more than 20 times. However, the recommended number of uses varies depending on many factors that it is still vague how many times a reusable product should be used to be environmentally friendly.

In addition, a thermos is released with a new design every season and attracts customers. As a result, there are many ironic cases that people ‘collect’ them instead of using them.

<Source: Institute for Climate Change Action>

 

According to the data about greenhouse gas emission of containers commonly used for drinks conducted by KBS and the Institute for climate change action in Korea in 2019, a thermos got the first place in terms of emitting the most greenhouse gas. The figures are relatively high in each step and especially show a great difference in a manufacturing step as stainless, silicon rubber, and polypropylene are used for a product.

<Source: Institute for Climate Change Action>
 

As examining the data based on the period of use, it is noted that a thermos should be used every day for more than a month to offset the greenhouse gas emission comparing to the one of a paper cup. According to the CIRAIG, the International Reference Center for Life Cycle of Products, Services, and Systems, it may only make a meaningful difference when using plastic thermos more than 50 times and a stainless thermos more than 220 times. Yet, it is not that easy to be done than said. It is difficult to find a place to wash a used thermos outside and there are many chances we unexpectedly visit a café.

Second, Recyclability – Material Unification needed!

A reusable cup mentioned above is made of various plastic materials that each of them are needed to be separated. However, the product is recovered as a ‘plastic’ by our current collecting system that it is difficult for them to be properly recycled. The practical recyclability after disposal and the availability to apply for the current resource circulation system must be also considered. The same approach should be applied to thermos with composite materials.

PE, PLA, PS, PET, and others called PLASTIC are produced with various materials and additives, but there are no specific sorting standards that their recycling rate is pretty low and this can be improved by material unification.

Third, Hygiene and Safety – Are they really safe?

Many reusable cups are made of PP and they are easily scratched due to weak durability. This may cause the odor of a drink to linger in the cup and germs easily occur in the cracks that a cup should be replaced often. It is also easy for germs to grow when holding a drink for a long time in a thermos that a user should thoroughly clean after use for hygiene. There was once a great issue when Lead was detected from the surface of a container, too. Therefore, a standard for hazardous materials used for containers should be thoroughly established.

 

Lately, many are into cleaning services for reusable containers that it promotes individuals and companies start to introduce a reusable cup sharing system. They advertise that they manage the cleaning system and give exceptional care to maintain the hygiene of products. However, contamination may differ depending on users, and hygiene and safety should be secured by proper standards.

 

Our choice that helps the environment

A single-use cup is now blamed to be harmful to the environment and is about to be kicked out. However, we have used the product because of their outstanding convenience and hygiene and our needs toward the product become much more desperate during the pandemic.

Therefore, there should be our effort including the reduction of disposables use and if there are absolute needs due to our lifestyle and situation, we need to find sustainable products that have recyclability and compostability. In other words, it is necessary to unify materials to make recycling more convenient recycling and the compostability of a product should be evaluated for the places where there are no sufficient facilities available for recycling.

 

Instead of following the mainstream or trend, we should have more comprehensive perspectives and approaches while more LCA and food contact safety analysis is required in the food packaging field for the environment and humans.

One thing for sure is that there is not much time left for us to restore every step we have made.