By Catherine Franks
Judging by the current state of the world, it may feel like single use cups are not the biggest thing for us to be worrying about right now. They are definitely not. The problem is that the big stuff is so big that it feels overwhelming and that in turn makes us feel powerless.
The thing is, every little decision we take makes an impact on the world around us. Jane Goodall said it best, "What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of a difference you want to make."
To counter the feeling of powerlessness, it is important for us as humans to focus on small changes that we each have easily within our power to make. This gives us agency and allows us to effect meaningful change in our daily lives.
Looking at it from our perspective, as a local coffee businesses, we have a responsibility for the effect that we have on our community and the world at large and it feels like the issue of single use cups is one that is well within that sphere of responsibility.
So in October we will be launching a series of initiatives to try to support our customers to reduce the number of single use cups that are used at Steampunk. We would like to work together with our customers to tackle our combined reliance on wasteful throw away packaging.
We’ve chatted with customers a lot over the years about the topic of take away cups and the overwhelming feeling that has come across is that people want to use reusable cups. They understand clearly that paper cups are wasteful and they generally feel pretty guilty about using them as often as they do. Despite their best intentions, however, life gets in the way and they simply forget to bring a cup or perhaps spontaneously decide to get a coffee and don’t have their cup with them. Hey, absolutely all of us have been there!
So we have decided that we will run a series of initiatives that will help tackle this dilemma for our customers and give you different options. Here’s a rundown on what we are going to be rolling out starting in October.
Discount for bringing your own
We are continuing to offer our discount of 25p for take away coffees when you bring your own reusable cup. We have offered this discount for years now and it will continue. This one is a no-brainer and the least that every cafe should do. This of course doesn’t solve the problem of remembering your cup but it is a nice reward and our regular customers who always come in with their own cup have definitely benefited from it over the years. We are happy to continue to make it worth your while.
Below, you can see our regular Peter's cup - an old school Steampunk KeepCup that he brings in on every visit (nearly every day) and has done for years. He will have saved thousands of cups from having gone into landfill over this time and has also saved money on every coffee.
A Steampunk Reusable Cup
If you feel inspired you to get your very own reusable cup and you quite fancy showing off your Steampunk affiliation, from mid October we will have two new options of branded KeepCup available to buy in store or online. Choose the glass ‘Brew’ version if you are looking for perfect clarity and the closest experience to drinking from a ceramic cup or the insulated ‘Commuter’ version if you are looking for an unbreakable and leakproof cup that will keep your coffee hot on the move. Did I mention they are also super cute? Keep a lookout for them over the next few weeks - we will let you know when they arrive.
If you buy your Steampunk KeepCup in store we will fill it with a free coffee for you to take away. And of course every time you get a take away with it you will save a further 25p. It will quickly pay for itself.
Deposit cup scheme
To solve the problem of the forgotten cup, on 8 October (2025) we will be launching our deposit reusable cup scheme in conjunction with 2GoCup .
The scheme is really simple - when you order a take away coffee, you can get a reusable 2GoCup for a £2 deposit. Once you have finished your coffee you can return the cup to get your deposit back or you can just exchange it the next time you order a take away coffee.
This way you don’t need to remember your own cup, you can simply pay a deposit and get your coffee in a returnable cup and even if you build up a stack of them at home you can return them to get your deposits back at any time.
We will also give you a 25p discount on your take away coffee when you use this scheme.
We hope that the discount for reusable use in conjunction with the deposit scheme will really help our customers and will boost the rate of reusable use at Steampunk. Our initiatives back in 2018 had succeeded in bringing our rate of reusable use up to around 30% which was really high. We will keep tabs on what effect these new measures have and keep you posted.
Later in the year (probably November 2025) we will be bringing in a couple of other initiatives which we feel will help boost the Reuse Revolution further. Here's a wee preview:
A charge for single use cups
A couple of years ago the Scottish Government proposed what they called a latte levy of 25p for every single use cup. The idea is similar to the carrier bag charge which was a resounding success in reducing carrier bag pollution . Although this levy has now been delayed (sadly due to lobbying by business federations), I feel it is an excellent idea as it dramatically amplifies the benefit of bringing your own cup. A 25p charge for single use plus a 25p discount for bringing your own makes the difference of bringing your own cup versus using a disposable 50p. This is by anyone’s accounting a huge discount on your take away Steampunk flat white - from £3.85 (in a single use cup with a levy) to £3.35 when you get one in your own reusable cup.
So from November 2025 we will start charging 25p for single use cups. We hope that the Scottish Government will bring in the legislative change to implement this charge across the board as this will level the playing field, compelling the chains in particular who are dragging their feet on the issue. In the meantime, we will bring it in unilaterally as we are sure that it will have a dramatic effect on the number of single use cups that we use.
Adopt-a-Cup
So what happens if you forgot your reusable cup, you are passing through and don’t want a deposit cup and you really don’t want to use a single use cup either (or pay that extra 25p)? Well we have a cute solution for you!
We have a 'Mug Amnesty' box where we have been collecting donations of all sorts of cups and mugs and you can choose one from that box, we can make your coffee in it, and you can take it home. You are of course welcome to return it or to bring us another cup in exchange. But you don’t have to. Now you won’t get the 25p discount but you will get a mug to take home.
We welcome donations of cups for our scheme through our Cup Amnesty - feel free to drop off donations at Steampunk when you visit.
Conclusion
As your friendly coffee stop, it’s our job to help ease you into your day and we take this job very seriously. But we feel it is also incumbent upon us to make doing the right thing as easy as possible too, at least when it comes to coffee.
So let's work together to bring the Reuse Revolution to Steampunk!! If we can save 70 single use cups per person from going into landfill every year why wouldn’t we want to do that?
Thank you Rachel Seago Illustration for the graphic.