No time to waste
Thousands of Australians order coffee to go from their favourite cafés every day, leaving with their precious beverage safely contained in a roughly eight-ounce paper cup. For many of them, once the coffee is gone, the cup is no longer of any use and disposed of without a second thought. That’s the problem.
Gary Smith, CEO of compostable packaging manufacturer BioPak, says coffee cup waste is emblematic of a wider issue facing the food service industry, making up a fraction of the 1.8 million tonnes of food packaging that goes to landfill every year. On the bright side, he says sustainable changes are being made across the industry.
“The shift towards sustainable packaging has been aggressive in the past year,” Gary tells BeanScene.
“If you look, you will notice far less plastic in food service. Large companies are getting involved too. Woolworths has replaced plastic bases for its cakes, biscuits, and fruit with sugar cane pulp-based alternatives and Qantas announced it will remove 100 million single-use plastic items per annum by 2020.”
Although part of a wider issue, coffee cup waste has seen increased awareness since 30 May 2017, when ABC series War on Waste aired an episode addressing the impact paper coffee cups were having on the environment.
The show saw host Craig Reucassel ride around the streets of
