Dr Mike Brock (UEA Economics) & Ben Plummer (UEA Environmental Sciences)
In the UK, we are now estimated to use around 7 million take away cups each day [1] and with the ever-growing culture of on-the-go consumption for people living in the developed world this number is only expected to rise.
This begs an interesting question: why have take-out coffee cups not become a recyclable commodity? Part of the problem lies in the logistics of the product – not only does the material that hot drinks come in need to be insulated (to avoid somebody burning their hands), but they also need to be resistant to liquid leakage and robust to handle. This is why plastic –lined cups have been an ideal market product to the coffee industry until now.
Consequently, whilst other products have tended to move towards making packaging fully recyclable (for example milk bottles, tinned goods and loose vegetable bags), the coffee industry has employed a variety of alternative mechanisms to try and incentivise people to reduce their use of disposable coffee cups. These have primarily revolved around ‘keep-cups’, involving either a reduction in price for those bringing their own receptacles or through employing a charge for people who wish to still use a disposable cup (the so-named ‘latte-levy’[2]). The success from these have been mixed. Waitrose estimate that 78 million disposable cups have been avoided by only offering customers the option of their own cup since April 2018[3] and the ‘keep-cup’ has become a common site for sale in most stores, cafes and supermarkets across the UK. This has even created competition regarding the ‘best’ such product in terms of design and appeal[4].
Nevertheless, many still campaign for the coffee industry to produce a recyclable disposable cup. Some cite the appalling figures on existing cup recycling (estimated at <1%[5]), whilst others turn to classic behavioural reasons such as forgetting to bring a keep-cup or the inconvenience of (or lack of hygiene in) carrying around these products with the dregs on coffee still in the bottom. As a consequence, manufacturers are starting to produce biodegradable cups that are reaching production costs that could be suitably competitive in the wholesale market[6].
This all seems highly positive – in the future a combination of biodegradable or keep-cups might replace the environmentally toxic biodegradable take-out cup. However, this is to assume that the former two products act as complements to one another and that each do act as a substitute for the non-recycled product. In fact, behavioural environmental economics offers a theory to suggest that making the disposable coffee cup recyclable could indeed have perverse effects on the overall sustainability of consumer habits…
The reason for this lies in behavioural consumer psychology. More specifically, once we know a product is ‘recyclable’, we may start using this product, even if before we were doing something equally good or better. In the case of coffee cups, it is plausible that those people previously using a keep-cup will convert to recyclable disposable options because they deem there are no negative consequences to doing so. This actually means that we are moving back down the co-called ‘waste hierarchy (Figure 1):
Cognitively, we can explore this in the way shown by Figure 2. It illustrates that once coffee cups are recyclable people’s choice frame adapts, and it possible that the new option to recycle impacts upon their stage 1 (cup choice) and stage 2 (disposal choice) decision-making.
Sound implausible? Well, in a field experiment conducted at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in 2019, researchers in the School of Economics and School of Environmental Science undertook a project to look at the impact of doing just this. They monitored both the purchasing and disposal habits of people using two café outlets on the UEA campus. The trial consisted of three phases. The first simply logged usage and sales data with no adjustment to the recyclable nature of coffee cups. Each outlet already had a special bin for coffee cups to be disposed in, but these were not recycling bins. The second phase informed customers that take-away cups could be recycled so long as placed in a special marked bin located at the same place as those had been in phase 1, but of a different colour. In phase 3, these bins and signs were removed and the bins from phase 1 reinstated. This was to assess if any change between stages 1-2 of Figure 2 persisted.
The results showed that around 13 extra cups were disposed of in a bin during phase 2 each day, although these effects did not persist in phase 3. The regression outputs below show that this result hold even when controlling for changes in behaviour attributable to weather and temperature.
Whilst this was only a small-scale study, this offers a concerning signal that if this market advances so as to make an economically viable recyclable take-out cup, this may have regressive implications for the overall sustainability of the coffee industry. Of course, the extent to which the new cups replace non-recyclable options or instead displace keep-cups is the key point, but the evidence from Figure 4 does not encourage us in this regard!
Overall, it is clear that the coffee industry is some way behind other markets in its ventures to improve environmental sustainability, although significant strides are being made, both in terms of the options available and the market techniques to encourage alternatives to (non-recyclable) disposable cups. However, on World Coffee Day 2019, we would send a plea to consider the truly best environmental action that you can take. Importantly, reuse is better than recycling and future generations will thank you for ordering your cappuccino in a keep cup to go!
[1] https://www.recycle-more.co.uk/how-is-it-recycled-/coffee-cup-recycling
[2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/disposable-coffee-cups-latte-levy-tea-hot-drinks-plastic-tax-campaign-a8497051.html
[3] https://www.waitrose.com/home/mywaitrose/free_tea_or_coffee.html
[4] https://www.bustle.com/p/7-best-reusable-coffee-cups-available-in-the-uk-18727529
[5] https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/disposable-coffee-cups-how-big-problem-environment-landfill-recycling-incinerate-export-rubbish-a8142381.html
[6]https://shop.biogreengate.com/Default.asp?msclkid=96bfa972f0cd1a213fb9f4e281c3cd7b&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Campaign%20England&utm_term=%2BLatte%20%2BLevy&utm_content=Biodegradable%20Cups%20(Cups%20General%20Split)%20Wholesale
[7] DEFRA (2011), Guidance on applying the Waste Hierarchy, available at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_da ta/file/69403/pb13530-waste-hierarchy-guidance.pdf