this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023

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‘It was a plague’: Killarney becomes first Irish town to ban single-use coffee cups (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 year ago by MicroWave to c/world

42 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Killarney used to accept it as a price of being a tourist town: ubiquitous disposable coffee cups spilling from bins, littering roads and blighting the area’s national park.

The County Kerry town went through about 23,000 cups a week – more than a million a year – adding up to 18.5 tonnes of waste.

Not any more. Three months ago, Killarney became the first town in Ireland to phase out single-use coffee cups. If you want a takeaway coffee from a cafe or hotel, you must bring your own cup or pay a €2 deposit for a reusable cup that is returned when the cup is given back.

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[–] [email protected] 134 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I recently visited Killarney and I thought it was a great system. As a tourist, the €2 was no big deal to have a cup for the whole week. Then I just returned it before I left and got the money back. They do this all over Germany and have branded cups for each town. It would be cool to see it more widely done elsewhere too.

[–] [email protected] 98 points 1 year ago (2 children)

branded cups for each town

€2 is also a pretty cheap souvenir of a trip. my mom would have collected one of each.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

Yeah I'm 100% not giving that cup back and am collecting as many different ones as I can.

Admittedly I'll probably bring them home and never use them and throw them away in a few years because omg I have way to many cups I can't handle this anymore. But still.

[–] Maco1969 5 points 1 year ago

I visited about twenty years ago, it's definitely worth a visit.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Very good system. We all need to get into the habit of bringing our own bottles/cups and reusable bags when we're out and about.

[–] greenmarty 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

...as used to be common in the past.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hindsight is 20/20

[–] greenmarty 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

and now it is 20/23

[–] Syrc 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

That honestly seems like a hassle. Long trips and stuff I understand, but if I’m just hanging with my friends with nothing on me I don’t want to carry a bag just to put a cup in it.

The deposit system they’re using in that town seems much better to me, as long as that’s an option I’m on board.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

it's a return to tradition. few hundred years ago you'd have your sword and your tankard on your belt as part of your daily carry

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The deposit system would be great to see for take away/ delivery food as well. Here in Germany we have it for coffee cups and bottles/ cans you buy from the supermarket. Works great and is really easy to adapt to, just the garbage from Take away food is still a pain in the ass.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, it would be pretty cool, especially since recycling isn't even an option for Pizza boxes.

Although I can imagine that a reusable pizza box is actually worse in terms of CO2. Production and cleaning might be worse over the projected lifetime than the current system.

[–] Elivey 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Tiny inconveniences in our lives are far less important than the billions of tons of pollution we create every year...

[–] Syrc 1 points 1 year ago

Sure, but the deposit system doesn’t create pollution either and is also a much smaller inconvenience.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I have a collapsible coffee cup made of silicone, works pretty well and barely takes any space at all in my bag.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago

I understand a 100 percent. Most shops here switched to something like recup, but I really like taking 10 minutes to drink from a decent cup. And, of course, italians always had al banco, where you drink a quick caffe` (espresso) while standing at the bar

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

what a great idea. i would like to see this in my own home town. so much waste could be avoided…

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A town I used to live in ve in got rid of all public waste bins and made steep fines for littering. Was super frustrating for the first year but I think was an excellent idea. Forced residents and tourists to be more thoughtful about waste. Carry in carry out in parks etc. The biggest surprise was that it really noticeably cut down on mosquito and bee pests throughout the town. The US really needs to take more actions like this. The amount of waste in public areas is astonishing compared to the vast majority of other countries I've been to. Tell your local representatives about these ideas.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

That's an interesting idea. I can see local businesses having a whinge about it for a couple reasons: 1) people less likely to buy snacks/drinks on the go and 2) the business now has to deal with lots of extra rubbish that used to go in the public bins outside. Was there any push back? People were a bit whingey about the plastic bag ban here at first but I think most people have accepted it now (although I do forget my reusable bags on an annoyingly regular basis).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Personally, the plastic bag ban has resulted in me just purchasing much less or avoiding purchases entirely, especially if it's something I'm unable to carry to my home with my bare hands. In hindsight that has reduced a lot of primary waste as well

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Nothing too vocal that I recall. Was a pretty progressive town. I'm sore about the plastic bag thing though. I reused all those bags for house trash or lunches and had to switch to purchasing separate single purpose bags for those things.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

You could get reusable sandwich bags and compostable bin bags.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I lost the 'just enough' source for bags to pick up the dog's shit in.

[–] kolfen 14 points 1 year ago

Looks like a good idea

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I live in Ireland and litter is a major issue. Bottles, cans, cups, discarded food, trash dumped in country lanes and worst of all fly tipping. I think a lot of these issues are easy to remedy and while reusable coffee cups are a positive there is a lot more that could be done.

[–] xX_fnord_Xx 4 points 1 year ago

As a former barista, getting rid of single use cups would easily cut a coffee shops waste in half, if not more.

Oh, and if your local coffee shop has a recycle bin/slot, chances are whatever goes into it goes into the regular trash. People are stupid and think everything they put in there is recyclable and workers don't have the time to sort through it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Killarney used to accept it as a price of being a tourist town: ubiquitous disposable coffee cups spilling from bins, littering roads and blighting the area’s national park.

Eliminating single-use cups sounds a relatively modest goal but only a handful of other towns, such as Freiburg in Germany, are known to have tried similar initiatives.

“We were looking at options for community projects, and we thought, ‘Oh, coffee cups, that’ll be quick’,” said Louise Byrne, a sustainability manager for the Killarney Park Hotel and The Ross.

The campaign sought to enlist all of Killarney’s 21 independent cafes, a lengthy process of individual face-to-face meetings, research, negotiations, a town hall-style gathering, a video, and more discussions.

In addition to environmental benefits, the organisers said cafes could save money – each disposable cup costs 20 to 30 cents – and enhance Killarney’s brand.

He had no objection to paying a €2 deposit for a takeaway cup that could be returned to any cafe in Killarney or 400 locations across Ireland, including Dublin airport, that are part of a wider campaign.

The original article contains 736 words, the summary contains 178 words. Saved 76%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

The tl;dr at the beginning of the post was shorter than the auto tl;dr and was enough info.

[–] BackOnMyBS 1 points 1 year ago

Is that where Pat's Famous Chicken is from?

[–] weeeeum -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I personally did this like a year ago. Its extremely easy because almost every coffee machine out there will have a refillable pod that you load with your own grounds. So instead of putting in a pod you just load a scoop and put in your pod. Oh and it's way cheaper and honestly tastier.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They're talking about cups, not pods

[–] weeeeum 5 points 1 year ago

[+] twelvefloatinghands -10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

They are pretty convenient though. Are there any sustainable alternatives?

Like with straws, I know for fact that there are non-paper biodegradable ones.

Also, with discovery of plastic-eating bacteria, how is the definition of biodegradable shifting?

Edit: Obligatory mention of industry regulations being more effective in helping the environment

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

These are in order of priority. You want to recycle as a last resort, and reduce or reuse instead, if that works.

[–] Stovetop 7 points 1 year ago

It will require rethinking business models. On-site consumption will have to be in ceramic mugs or other reusable dishware, and people looking for anything to-go will either have to bring their own portable coffee mugs and pay by volume or the business will have to sell their own reusable portable mugs and continue to charge fixed quantities.

I would be afraid of the company to sell their own reusable mugs because, if the problem boils down to mostly tourists, most of those would still end up in landfills.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

There's been plenty of recent developments on plastic-free coffee cups. Even ones that have very thin layers of biodegradable plastic. A few years ago someone came up with fully carton based cups that hold coffee.

But I think that reusable cups are probably more viable. The €2 deposit sounds pretty hefty, so it's going to strongly encourage people to bring their own cups and actually return the reusable ones. Mini-thermoses are cool, I like them.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

2 euros isn’t a lot in Ireland

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

If anything, I expect the measure to encourage people to not drink coffee at all, or to wait until they're home instead.

[–] twelvefloatinghands -1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Simple fact of the matter is that that sounds really inconvenient, and needs justifying. If there are readily available biodegradable options right there, why on earth wouldn't you use them?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

If there are readily available biodegradable options right there, why on earth wouldn’t you use them?

Because that's still trash. From the teaser above:

Killarney used to accept it as a price of being a tourist town: ubiquitous disposable coffee cups spilling from bins, littering roads and blighting the area’s national park.

Apparently they got sick of disposable coffee cups, so suggesting a cup which biodegrades is not exactly a solution to their problem.

As a resident of another town, I find filled bins, littered roads and trash in nature really inconvenient. Happy to see it justified.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

What’s inconvenient about it? That you have to return the cup? Seems pretty lazy.

[–] Tuss 3 points 1 year ago

I mean you could even return the cup at the airport so if you forget to return it in town you could deposit it when you leave.

It's just like bringing your own bags to the store, sorting your trash for recycling or returning bottles and cans to the store.

Just return the cup and get your deposit back.