Zero Waste Scotland finds cafes can increase sustainable choices by selling disposable cups separately

Selling disposable cups separately instead of offering discounts for reusable can significantly increase the number of people choosing the more sustainable drinks option, a study from Zero Waste Scotland has found.

New trials revealed that cafes that replaced discounts for reusable cups with clear, equivalent charges for disposable cups significantly increased the proportion of customers switching the reusable for on-the-go tea and coffee.

Under the trials, four public sector cafes in Scotland stopped giving discounts for reusable cups and instead reduced the total price of a drink by the equivalent amount and charged customers that same amount for single-use cups.

For example, a ten pence reusables discount was replaced with a ten pence reduction in the total cost of the drink, and a ten pence disposables charge.

That kept the overall price of a hot drink the same as it had been before both for people choosing throwaway cups and for those choosing reusables.

The proportion of consumers switching from disposable to reusable cups rose across all four cafes by 50 per cent on average.

The findings suggest that making the cost of disposable cups clear instead of hiding that cost within the total price of the drink will do more to kick Scotland’s disposable coffee cup habit than offering discounts.

Lead author of the study and environmental policy advisor Michael Lenaghan, said: “We have shown that it isn’t necessary to charge people more for their coffee to persuade them to ditch a reusable cup in favour of a reusable one.”

“You just need to put a clear price on the cup and let consumers decide if it is a price worth paying every time they buy a drink.”

“Single-use packaging has an environmental and a financial cost, but that financial cost is usually hidden from view, so consumers don’t have all the information they need to make informed purchasing decisions.”

“Behavioural science has shown that people will make more of an effort to avoid a cost, such as a 25p charge on single-use cups, than they will to obtain a gain of equal value, such as a 25p reusable cup discount.”