36. Ditching disposables - making reusable coffee cups the new normal


Despite years of effort, reusable cup initiatives have struggled to break through, often dismissed as 'interesting but not scalable'. Some coffee shops have even banned single-use cups, only to watch their sales drop. So, what’s really holding reuse back? And can we ever make it the norm? In this episode, we dive into the successes, setbacks, and lessons learned from the push for reusables, and explore whether a waste-free coffee culture is truly within reach. Plus, how are textiles collected, are magnets rubbish or not and how could EPR improve reuse?
In the latest episode of our podcast, we take a deep dive into the pressing issues surrounding recycling, from textiles to reusable coffee cups. As our hosts, explore the complexities of waste management, they uncover the often misunderstood world of recycling and the impact of consumer behaviour on sustainability.
One key topic discussed is the collection of textiles. Many listeners may be familiar with the bags that arrive at their doors, asking for unwanted clothing. However, our hosts emphasise the importance of verifying the legitimacy of these collections. It’s crucial to ensure that the operation is compliant with regulations and that the textiles will be reused or recycled responsibly. The Textile Recycling Association provides valuable resources for those looking to learn more about this process.
The conversation then shifts to the challenges faced by reusable coffee cup schemes. Despite the growing awareness of environmental issues, statistics reveal that only a small percentage of customers actually remember to bring their reusable cups when purchasing coffee. The Boston Tea Party, a pioneering coffee chain in Bristol, banned single-use coffee cups, but this bold move resulted in a significant drop in takeaway coffee sales. This highlights the gap between consumer intentions and actions.
Our hosts also discuss Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and its potential to drive reusable packaging initiatives. In France, for example, a portion of EPR funds is earmarked for developing reusable systems, which could serve as a model for the UK. The episode raises thought-provoking questions about how legislation can shape consumer behaviour and encourage more sustainable practices.
This transcript is generated automatically and so could be full of errors and spelling mistakes. We apologise for this but it is the best we can offer at this point. Your local podcast provider might also provide a transcript.
James Piper: Ah, hello. Welcome to Talking Rubbish show weekly podcast. Delving deep into the world of recycling and discussing the truth behind snappy headlines and one sided stories. In this episode we will discuss how textiles are collected. Work out how to make reusable coffee cups work our, magnets, rubbish or not. And I have a question about how EPR could drive reusable packaging. I'm J. Piper, all author from the Rubbish Book and I'm joined by Rawby standannul, my far from rubbish friend. Morning, Robbie.
Robbie Staniforth: Hey, James.
James Piper: It's a bit touch and go this week. I don't know if the listeners can tell. My voice disappeared over the last couple of days.
Robbie Staniforth: Oh, yes, it's not ide.
James Piper: Not ideal if you do a podcast.
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. I thought I was worried that I was goingna have to do even more talking than usual. But you've recovered just in time, would you say?
James Piper: yeah, I'm okay. I'm a bit ill, but hopefully, I mean, the trouble is what's going to happen now is everyone's gonna say, oh, actually his voice was better this week. It was quite like there's something about it. And then I'll just have to maintain some level of illness just to keep it going. That's what's going toa happen.
Robbie Staniforth: How to keep a raspy throat.
James Piper: Yeah. What's the opposite of honey and lemon?
Robbie Staniforth: I think it'cigarettes and alcohol.
James Piper: Ellie, I have to. It's for the podcast.
Alison says it's blue skies and sunny in the UK
Anyway, sorry my illness meant we haven't talked about the amazing elephant in the room that you are back.
Robbie Staniforth: I'm back.
James Piper: Yeah.
Robbie Staniforth: In the UK and it's blue skies and sunny. I feel like I've brought the weather back with me.
James Piper: I know. I don't know what's happened today. It's 20 degrees. It's like ridiculous.
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, it's nice and sunny. can't believe it's blue skies. The daffodils are out.
James Piper: Lovely. And I walked in today. I must admit I love our office. Right. And so we, we record from Eco Surety. I think we've said that before. And I walked today and there was a little bowl on the side with an aluminium foil and a little note that just said, please add to my aluminium foil ball. So it's big enough to be recycled.
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, that's, that's team working together to get things recycled.
James Piper: It's amazing's abl. Amazing. So I think. Thank you, Alison. I think who's one of our colleagues who, who put the initial ball out. But I think it's getting close to about tennis ball size that mean it's nearly ready for recycling.
Robbie Staniforth: Very good. I must add mine to it.
Robbie returns from South Africa with lots of insights on waste and recycling
James Piper: And so, Robbie, with the return of you from South Africa, presumably you've come back with lots of insights because I know you've been visiting all sorts of recycling facilities out there.
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, no, it was, it was really some intense time learning all about how recycling works, particularly for plastics out in South Africa. Intense week. Probably going to take a week or two to digest my thoughts, but definitely looking forward to sharing some of those learnings in a future episode.
James Piper: Oh, nice. Okay, so you're going to take over a trash talk in the next couple of weeks. We're not sure which episode, but in the next couple of weeks you'll have a trash talk about everything you learned in South Africa.
Robbie Staniforth: Definitely. Very, very keen to talk about it. It's so interesting. And there are some things that are really similar to the UK and there are some things that are so totally different. And it just goes to show, waste and recycling is a global issue and the way people are tackling it across nations, can vary massively. And there's lots to be learn from one another.
James Piper: Additions and corrections.
Robbie says some items may not be recyclable
So, Robbie, I think we've had a couple of controversial rubbish or not recently.
Robbie Staniforth: Oh, no. Yeah, well, they're always a bit controversial because it sort of. It depends. It's usually the answer, isn't it, where you are, what bin you put it in. But what's happened this time?
James Piper: So we did the thing on glass candle holders where we said we thought those could be recycled. They were like jars. Y Stand by it. Someone in the glass industry was mentioning that actually not all of them are recyclable. But then we said, okay, well, how do you tell the difference? Because actually we think most of them are recycableable. And he said, well, yeah, maybe they are all recyc. It'a bit complicated. I don't really know what the answer is. I think I stand by the fact that if your candle holder looks like a jar, it's recyclable. And I think what we're referring to here, that may not be recyclable. And like those thick ones with like the tea lights, you know, you get those glass tea light holders.
Robbie Staniforth: Yes. Yeah'so. ###rt of formed into like a, much bigger object or whatever.
James Piper: Yeah. Really thick glass. So, so that was candle holders and then, oh, my goodness, hot water bottles. We recorded it. You'd said it was rubbish. I'd said recyclable. Yeah, I stand by it. But Then I had, an event with Bristol Waste.
Robbie Staniforth: Okay.
James Piper: And I managed to say to them, you know, we're about to put up this episode that says hot water bottles will recyclable. What do you think? And, Jack for Bristol Waves. Thank you. Jack reached out to four different people because she couldn't get a straight answer and they felt actually maybe they wouldn't want them hot water bottles.
Robbie Staniforth: Oh, now, gosh, I remind me, where were you saying
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Robbie Staniforth: which bin or where were you saying to take?
James Piper: I'd be heading for the tires, the tires that rub. Now I'm going to test this because, because there's so many websites, so many documents that say hot water bottless can be recycled. It's mostly will receiver community site accept it. So, I'm going to Bristol Waste with my hot water bottle. I'm going to go to the Ty bin. I'm going to ask whoever works there, can I put this in this ty bin? And then I'm going to take a photo of me doing it. So on social and I will update in a couple of weeks, I'm sure. Let's see if I managed to get my hot water bottle into the Ty bin without getting in trouble.
Robbie Staniforth: Oh, I'd, love it if it then gets tracked further down to the recycler who pulls it out and takes a photo and goes, which nummpies put this in here, I don't want it.
James Piper: Yeah, Jack will be sending me an email going, oh, you're in trouble. I know a lot of Bristol way listen to his podcast, so I hope you don't mind me doing this, but I've got to go and try it. I can't, can't accept that this very recyclable rubber is not going to be allowed in the Ty bin.
Robbie Staniforth: I'd love it if you got banned from all local council recycling sites as a consequence.
Bristol council cancels idea of four weekly collections after public consultation
James Piper: And we also had, Chloe on Discord. Chloe's shared a really interesting news story that I hadn't seen. Again, building on our full weekly collection discussion. Oh, yeah. oh, side note, Bristol have cancelled the idea of four weeks.
Robbie Staniforth: Did ye. So what's that? I missed that I saw you comment on something but I didn't have time to actually read the whole article.
James Piper: I think they felt the pressure. Lots of Bristol residents angry about four weeks. I think they're still discussing three weeks.
Robbie Staniforth: Okay, so three weeks is still on the cards. Okay.
James Piper: I need to check actually. Yeah, we'll do that next week, but baselon council are going backwards. I couldn't Believe this. So Baselon were doing fortnightly general.
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah.
James Piper: And they've done a consultation and they've decided to go to weekly general.
Robbie Staniforth: Why? Just because their residents want it. People are like, give me more space in me bin. Collected more regularly, so I can just buy it all in there.
James Piper: So it's going to cost the counter an extra 2 million pounds a year in running costs. and quote from the council, create a reduction in recycling.
Robbie Staniforth: Wow. They've actually come out and said that directly.
James Piper: It's ridiculous. Shock horror. They did a consultation. The consultation said 61.1% of residents strongly agreed with a weekly collection. Yes. Do not ask people. There's a reason Bristol has not asked. Do you want to go down to weekly general collections? Because I can promise you, most people would want that. It's. It's extremely frustrating. And all of the comments were so positive, you know, like, hey, it's about time. Glad the council were doing this. I want more general collections. You just think this is so backwards compared to what everyone else is doing.
Robbie Staniforth: I'm not going to mention any other votes that you shouldn't put in the hands of the average person.
James Piper: Yes, it's not.
Robbie Staniforth: Not for this podcast.
James Piper: Just in case. 52%. Let's take an arbitrary number. 52% of maybe supported something that meant I'm not allowed to me youq anymore. So it's a really interesting thing, this, when you do consultations for this. Because what I've noticed, we talked a lot about this recently, actually, because we did this event and I was thinking about this. What you get is a lot of people who will vote to alleviate personal pain, ignore collective benefit, you know, so whenever we talk about, like, we're going to move to three weekly collections or four weekly collections, people always go, yeah, but what about if I go on holiday? Or what about if someone fly tips at the end of my street? You know, it's all really personal. I'm experiencing something, you know, and if you go quite heavy on the messaging of but you're helping the planet, or recycling is really good, or, you know, it just pales into insignificance compared to that small personal pain that I may experience. And we see it time and time again where, you know, councils go quite heavy on the messaging of, like, we want to do this because it's the right thing to do. And people tend to go towards their own personal situation and how it might affect them, which is human nature. I get it. You know, when you're looking at things like B collections you're always going to refer back to yourself. But I think it's somehow we have to start getting consumers and the public to go towards that. Kind of like, yeah, I'm willing to accept that I'm going to have a little bit of personal pain for a big collective benefit and it's. How do we get people to talk like that?
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, no, it's a great point. You know, the greater good and stuff. Philosophy, politics, you get it all on talking rubbish.
James Piper: Let's not talk about the Conservatives and Kei Badenock who said it's impossible for the UK to meet its net zero targets by 2050. That is also a bit of personal pain rather than collective benefit. Anyway, let's not go into it. We haven't got time,
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James Piper: let's move on.
Robbie's voice is deeper than normal, isn't it
We'd like. I was about to do the sponseor and I think this proves that I do it every week because, like, again, it's one of those things that I think people think is pre recorded. But you can hear my voice. It's like way deeper. my voice is deeper than normal, isn't it, Robbie?
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, it is definitely a bit cracklier.
James Piper: Let me have a drink and let me try and do responsonsor normal.
Robbie Staniforth: This is me refusing to do the sponsor, by the way, I.
James Piper: How do you want to do it? You do. Ah, it. That'd be great. Go on.
We'd like to thank our sponsor Eco Surety for helping brands recycle
Robbie Staniforth: We'd like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, Eco Surety, who are on a mission to rid the world of unnecessary packaging. They help brands navigate the tricky world of extended producer responsibility. But that's not all. They also collaborate on some incredible recycling projects and consumer awareness campaigns. For instance, maybe talking rubbish that gets the message out to the people. For those tough to recycle materials. If you're an organisation looking to make smarter packaging choices, check them out@ecourtyy.com Fair enough.
James Piper: You can't do a website that during an American accent. You also do, You know, I've noticed that I start doing. They help brands navigate a tricky mod of extended produce responsibility and then I do like a. Ah, but that is not all. And you dider. But that's not all. You know, so we have a different.
Robbie Staniforth: Style, a little bit different intonation. Let's keep the listeners engaged with our sponsor that we're very thankful for.
James Piper: Yeah. So as always, if you want to get hold of us, we're on Discord. The link will be in our show notes. You follow us on social media. Rubbishpodcast email talkingruubbishpodcastmail.com and everything we discuss will be on our link tree which you can find in our show notes Rubbish process.
Robbie explores textile recycling with the Textile Recycling Association
So we've, we've finished light bulbs. I think we promised that after light bulbs we've moved to textiles. So Robbie, how are textiles collected?
Robbie Staniforth: Oh, this was a great one. And you'll know, James, because we met up yesterday, that I was going to dive deep into textile recycling. And the first people to thank is the Textile Recycling Association. U Alan Wheeler, who I've met a few times. I think he's their CEO or, or managing director. Their website was a plethora of resource, including a history of textile recycling that if you're very interested to learn more about, I recommend going across the Textile Recycling Association's website and you can learn even more than I did.
Check the legitimacy of bags posted through your door to recycle unwanted textiles
So the first thing to talk about is the bags that you have posted through the door. U so I think everyone will probably be familiar with these. It usually comes with a note saying we're in your area next week. Any textiles that you don't need, please put into the bag will make sure they find a new home. They'll either be reused or recycled. Now the first thing is really you've got to check the legitimacy of these bags, because often it's a commercial operation who are sort of flying under the radar and not complying with all of the rules of doing such a practise. So there's a couple of ways you can work out whether it's a legitimate collection or a business just trying to sort of insert itself and then potentially do things like take the good stuff and then just dump the rest. Fly tip, etc. So look for a genuine registered charity number on the bag is one thing you can do. You can check if they're a member of the Textile Recycling Association. That also is a sort of mark of validity. And there's also what's called a Fundraising Standards Board tick kind of logo, which you'll have to Google becausee I can't explain it to you, that you can look out for. And the reason is that the local authority needs to grant them a licence to do these bag drops into people's houses and you can check with your council whether they've been licenced to do it. There are a few exceptions and some big charities like Age uk, Bernardos Cancer Research, Save the Children have an exemption and they can just do it nationally.
James Piper: Oh, interesting. Yeah, well, we'll share that. what was it? The Fundraising Standards Board tick. We'll share that. Social media. So if you want to see that, follow us on Instagram rbish poodcast. I'll put that into our stories.
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, so, those bags are a very easy and convenient way to recycle your textiles. However, it is a little bit hit and miss, isn't it? You don't know when that bag's going to be posted through your door. So an alternative option is to take it to a charity shop. This probably, and it's genuinely since about the 60s, 70s and 80s is when charity shops started to become big and it is in line with how much we started consuming, certainly in the uk, but definitely in the global north as a consequence of saying what are we going to do with all of the textiles
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Robbie Staniforth: and other things, but predominantly u, fashion and textiles to redistribute them. So take them and to your local charity shop. As always, you can use the recyclenow.com website, in the UK to try find out where your local charity is. The third option is a textile bank. So you may well have seen these in supermarket car parks. sometimes they're in community centre car parks. Again, just like the bag that comes through your door, it's really important to look for a familiar charity or just double check that that they're actually going to do the right thing with it through those aforementioned roots.
You can put clothes and textiles into carrier bags for recycling
And then finally, as always, our fourth option is a shout out for Bristol waste. Yet another tick in our black recycling box. Go back to episode one if you want to find out what goes in my black recycling box. You can put clothes and textiles, but it's really important that you put clean and dry items into carrier bags. So ideally clear, but you might not have a clear one. Just not a black bin liner basically so that they can see it's not general waste, it is textiles that you want to be collected. But they can only take usable and wearable textiles, not rags. So that's stuff that will be redistributed and, and, and resold. And it's important to label any carrier bags to say, you know, textiles, and they don't collect these wet textiles. And we'll talk about what happens to textilesuse. It isn't quite as simple as just shredding them up. There's lots of options for how they get sorted and graded, which I think is worth talking about. Trash Hawk still doing the jazz hands.
Today we talk about reusable cup schemes and whether they're widely used
James Piper: Today. So we're in the third part of our cup series. we did paper coffee cups, which was episode 34. We had an excellent interview with James Cropper last week. If I do say to myself, I really enjoyed it.
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, it was a great chat.
James Piper: and so that's episode 35 and we promised that today we talk about reusable cup schemes and try and work out how we think we can make reusable cup schemes work. And the reality is they're not widely used and we'll come on to that.
Boston Tea Party was first to ban single use coffee cups in UK
Robbie, have you got your reusable cup today?
Robbie Staniforth: I don't have it in my bag actually, but that's because I, know I'm going to be in the office all day and having my coffee here.
James Piper: O I'm the same. Yeah, we've both got a mug. I think you ve got ag Both got China mug.
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah.
James Piper: Okay, so we've both got our coffee, we're ready to go. So I think actually the place to start when we think about reusable coffee cup schemes is a Bristol organisation. It's like, it's crazy that it's a Bristol organisation called Boston Tea Party. They are a company based in Bristol. We know them very well. I'm not sure how well people know them outside of Bristol. I know they do have cafes now outside of Bristol. I think they're quite, they're a lot further than they were at the time that this was happening. But, I think they were the first to ban single use coffee cups in the UK. It was June 2018. If I'm wrong, I apologise but Chat GPT seemed to agree with me. I was like, I'm sure they're first. And I asked AI and it felt they were first to. It's amazing. So, Boston Tea Party, June 2018, around the time that coffee cups were a big conversation within the uk. they said, we're going to ban them, we're going to just have reusable cups. If you want to come in and get a takeaway coffee, you cannot have a paper cup.
Robbie Staniforth: ###Eah it was crazy, like big news, wasn't it? Across like the whole environmental sustainability community in the uk, like these guys are actually just saying tough. You can't have a single use cup.
James Piper: Absolutely. Now they are a bit different to Costa, Starbucks, Cafe Nero, you know, all these coffee chains, because they make quite a lot of money out of food, so they have a lot of dining, they have a lot of drinking, but takeaway coffee was a big part of their business. But they, they did have something to fall back on if this very bold move didn't work. Whereas I think you know, if you said to Starbucks, Costa Cafe Dero, hey, we're going to reduce the number of coffees you sell, that has a much bigger impact on them. So what customers had to do is they had to bring in a reusable cup, drink in or pay a deposit. Now, at the time, what they said, let's talk about how much reusable cup schemes are actually used. At the time, they said about 5% of customers took up the 25p offer drink offer. So what that tells US is about 5% of their customers. And bear in mind they were, you know, probably, you're based in Bristol, which is quite an ecos city. You're a chain that's got environmental credentials and the best they were getting is 5% of customers remembering reusable cups. I suspect it will be smaller for the more national chains.
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, well, that's a low percentage when you think about it. And it does highlight that sometimes we live in a bubble. You know, I, most of the time take, remember and take my cup, but you know that I'm in the less than 5%.
James Piper: Yeah. Now what they did do is they set up
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James Piper: a cup rental scheme where you could go in and say, I've forgotten my cup, I need to borrow a cup. So basically it was a deposit system and if I remember rightly, the price was quite high. I think now it's £2 a cup. I'm not sure if it was £2 of a time. I've got a feeling it was higher. You were effectively like buying the cup and then when you gave it back, you got your money back. It was quite expensive, I think, you know, we'll talk about deposits a bit later on, but expensive deposits definitely put customers off. They've got that down to £2 now. Now the truth is, and this is what lots of coffee chains talk about when they talk about how they can't move to reusable. Boston tea party lost 25% of their takeaway coffee sales.
Robbie Staniforth: okay. Do you think that's people who came into the store and when they realised they couldn't get a coffee because they didn't have a cup or didn't want to borrow a cup, they turned their heels and just went to the place.
James Piper: Next door, I suspect. So I don't think there's going to be a lot of people who were like, oh, they're not doing sing use cups. We won't go there. I bet they got there and thought, actually, I don't want to pay an extra few pounds to rent A coffee cup?
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, it's out of convenience and I'll.
James Piper: Forget to bring it back or, you know, I won't ever get my money back. So they were making a million pounds from takeaway coffee sales at the time across 22 stores and, and it dropped by £250,000 at, the time.
Robbie Staniforth: That's big.
James Piper: Yeah, really big. And I mean, I think this is something they're very proud of. You know, I think this is something that they feel is a real differential. And it's a shame that customers have not voted with their wallets. You know, it's a shame that customers have not gone. Well, we're going to support that company more because they're doing this initiative. I've actually been in contact with their marketing director, Lucy. So thank you very much, Lucy.
Robbie Staniforth: Geez, James, you know everyone, don't you?
James Piper: Lots of people. I've been in contact with their marketing director to find out because one of the things I wanted to know is had the sales come back? you know, was this just a blip? You lost 250k? Actually, it's back. and she sent me a note last night actually to say the sales had stayed steady since that initial drop off. They'd not got worse, but they not got better. So the reality is it has stayed lower. They have done an amazing campaign recently to try and encourage the national coffee chains to follow suit.
Robbie Staniforth: Okay.
James Piper: And I love their marketing. so here we go. I'll give you some of the slogans. Single use sounds pret e silly U pretty silly.
Robbie Staniforth: Nice.
James Piper: Good coffee shouldn't costa the earth. No bucks given for our planet and zero waste. Not Nero waste.
Robbie Staniforth: Wow. Okay. They know what they're doing.
James Piper: They're good, eh? They put these all over Bristol. So, yeah, maybe the COVID for if Lucy's happy. I might put the covers of our episode as one of these.
Robbie Staniforth: Very cool.
Boston Tea Party wants coffee chains to move out of single use cups
James Piper: It's quite cool.
Robbie Staniforth: I'll have to look those out.
James Piper: Now, Lucy sent me a letter. She'dive from Mary Cray because when they were doing this campaign, they were saying we want all the coffee chains to move out of single use. Our'll write to, the government. Mary Cray is the environment minister. So. And the letter just said EPR is coming in and EPR will drive people out of single use. So I'm not sure that's true for coffee cups and I wish there was mandatory take back. Yeah, Please see episode 34 if you want our opinions on that. Anyway, well done Boston Tea Party for being bold. I think that's the summary, I think, you know, but it is an important point first of all to say not many people would bring in every reusable cups. And when a coffee chain said, okay, that's it, no more single use cups, their sales dropp 25%. So while in surveys we can all say we want to do the right thing and we all care about coffee cups. If that was true, people would vote with their wallets and they would be supporting a company that has decided not to use single use cups. And that is not what has happened.
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, no, for sure. And let's just remember, 3.2 billion cups, that's the statistic, isn't it? A year that get used in the uk?
James Piper: Yeah, that's right.
Robby highlights some innovative reusable cup schemes, companies
so, I just wanted to highlight some innovative reusable cup schemes, companies, just some things that we've noticed. So I found one called Husky Swap. you buy a cup and then you swap it for a clean one. So the idea here is you basically buy a cup, you are literally on their website going, I need a new cup. But they have agreements with coffee companies who then have backup cups that when you've used it, you can then swap it for a clean one. And there's quite a few sites in the UK but do it. I did a search for Bristol and found quite a few coffee shops that were on the map. I felt it was the wrong way around because the whole point of this surely is that you're not carrying a dirty cup around but, you're sort of drinking your coffee then going, I still got the dirty cup. At some point I'll swap that for a clean one, which I guess works if you're out and about and you can swap it for a clean one there and then, but you might not be able to do that for a few hours and you've still got the dirty cup. So I couldn't quite. It's just a bit the wrong way around, I think.
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. And I think in the, when you take your reusable cup yourself, that's always a bit of a challenge. Mine doesn't seal properly and so you sort of want it cleaned out almost straight away as soon as you finish the drink so it's not sort of
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Robbie Staniforth: dripping the last little bits of coffee into your bag, etc. And it sounds like this cup will have the same issue.
James Piper: Yes. And who else did we find? Club Zero. You know about Club Zero, don't you, Robby?
Robbie Staniforth: Oh, yes, yeah, I heard of Club Zero. Yeah, they've Got their like bin system, haven't they?
James Piper: Yeah. So again, reusable cup with a bin that you, you know, a smart bin that basically you put your cut back into, you can get a deposit back. Most of these schemes run with a deposit because they don't want you to take the cup home, basically. So Costa ran a scheme called Bert. Did you know this?
Robbie Staniforth: No, not heard about.
James Piper: This one stands for borrow, use, reuse and take back. So in 2022, cost around this. This was actually in Glasgow. we're going to talk about borrow cup in a second, which is also in Glasgow. This was run across 14 stores and again it was an on the go returnable cup scheme. So customers could borrow a returnable cup, use it, reuse it and take it back to store for it to be washed before being used again. So.
Robbie Staniforth: Okay, and this was a deposit one, was it?
James Piper: I think it was, yeah. They're all running on a similar vein, which is you have a cup, you use it, you get it washed and brought back. It's currently some live systems in Blenheim palace and the Eden Project, which I think is a company called Reun Universe. So Robbie, do you know about this one? Have you been to see this?
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, I've been see this at Blenheim Palace. It's very impressive actually. And they've kudos to the folks at Blenheim palace for really leaning into this. So they've got a scheme where you pay a small deposit when you take the cup and then they've got bins all over, including some smart bins and basically you kind of scan a code, drop it back in a bin and that gets taken back to a washing facility inside Blenheim palace, you know, their own sort of washers and things. And when it moves through and gets tracked, that's when the deposit gets released. So it's a very secure process, I must say. But it basically is working in a closed environment, isn't it? They're not expecting people to take the cups outside of Blenheim palace and deposit them down the road in the nearest city or whatever. It'it's quite a closed environment, but it is good because often people will want a either single use or reusable cup so that they can stroll the grounds with a coffee or a tea. So it's in a, in an environment where a china mug wouldn't do. So it's, it's a very good application, I must say.
James Piper: Yeah. And so in these close schemes you can go 100% re and you're likely not to see those drops. The Boston Tea Party. So, yeah, because the reality is customers don't have a choice. So, you know, with Boston T Bar, you have a choice. You could go to the Costa next door and go, well, I want a single use cup, Blenim Palace. If they're all in reusable cups, you're going to do it because you don't have a choice. And we've seen that with Bath Spa University as well. So City To See, and, a charity that I'm involved with, we helped fund a Bristol trial, didn't we? And they took that Bristol trial and applied it back to Bath Spa University, which is quite close to us, and they moved into returnable cups and I think they certainly did it across five outlets and I think they removed all single use options. So again, the way that works, you have an app with a QR code, you scan it. Now, the interesting thing about City to See scheme is they don't take a deposit straight away, it's a delay deposit. So if you don't return your cup in two weeks or whatever, they've set the system as, it will charge you a deposit, but if you do return it, you never experience a deposit. And I think that's really innovative.
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. And definitely good for students who are. Maybe cash flows is not so good. and they don't really want to be spending that extra, a few pounds or pence on a deposit for a cup.
James Piper: Yeah, absolutely.
Borrow Cup is a reusable coffee cup available at over 40 locations
So let's talk about the really, interesting one that's live now, that's Borrow Cup. So, you know, and this is something we mentioned on the podcast before, because I went up to Glasgow to go and see it, but I want to share my views on this scheme and maybe take some learnings from it. The way Borow cup works is it's available at over 40 locations. That includes Costa Coffee, Cafe Nero, Burger King and local cafes. It's run by Hubbub. so, Alex, we've interviewed on this podcast. I think that was episode 15, if I remember rightly. so you could go and check that out. It's from By Hubbub and a reuse organisation called Reposit and, a guy called Stuart runs Reposit. So thank you very much, Stuart, for contributing to this episode as well and helping us out. Within Glasgow, there's Costa Coffee signed up. 14 Cafe Neros, I think I mentioned. I can't believe how many Cafe Neros there are in Glasgow city centre. It was everywhere I went, I could see one, 12 Burger Kings, five tinderbox cafes, three sprigs and then Kelvin Grove Gallery as well.
Robbie Staniforth: Oh, it's very nice. At the Kelvving Grove Gallery. It's a love spot there. Did you get to go there?
James Piper: No, I didn't. I just went to Burger King.
Robbie Staniforth: That would have been the first place I would have gone. I went to an event at Kelvin Grove Gar, a work one about recycling. It's, it's a beautiful gallery.
James Piper: Oh, great. And finally the Glasgow City Chambers. And I know they're launching new points all the time, so this will change. But, interestingly, while they were doing this hubbub reported that in Glasgow. I couldn't believe this single
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James Piper: use coffee cups make up over 30% of on street bins.
Robbie Staniforth: Whoa. OK.
James Piper: Huge, isn't it? 30% of a bin.
Robbie Staniforth: It's amazing how big coffee is. I'm always totally shocked and surprised how much of a cultural phenomenon it's become over the last decade.
James Piper: Yeah, it is very odd. Let me tell you about this scheme. So basically you go into a coffee shop, hopefully they ask you whether you want your drinking a Borow cup. You pay a pound, in addition to the cost of the drink. And when you finish your drink, you can take it back to any of the stores and you get your pound back. If you hand it to the till to the cashier, you get it in cash. If you put it in one of their bins, you scan a QR code, you get a pound as a voucher to use in any of the participating outlets. So I guess that's quite innovative. You're kind of like, okay, I bought my coffee and burgering, I drank it, but now I've got a voucher that could be used in Cafe Nero. I think we'll talk about vouchers towards the end of this, whether that's a good idea or not. But you know, there's, there's lots of positives to this. The positives are, big brands are involved, lots of locations. I mean, when I got there it really felt like it had taken over the city.
Robbie Staniforth: Okay. Oh, that's good. And at least it's like agnostic of each company and everyone's not trying to keep people in their own stores at, the sort of downside of the average person being able to find somewhere to take their cut back.
James Piper: Absolutely. And one of the things I think I would have leaned on with the marketing because we were up there and we basically got this borrow cup which was a pound, you know, and it was quite a nice Cup. And I was thinking, wow, I think quite a few people will take these home now. I've spoken to Stuart and he said, actually, that's not really happening. People are returning them, so that's great. But I was worried about that because for a pound, it's a really nice reusable cup.
Robbie Staniforth: Are you giving people tips here?
James Piper: No, no, don't take it. As we left Cafe Nero, I was looking. We were looking across the street and we said, wow, we could go into Preatt across the road, fill this reusable coffee cup and get a 50p discount. We could do that every day of the week, make two pound, 50 pen and then return the cup and get our pound back.
Robbie Staniforth: Oh, wow. You could use the cup to make money.
James Piper: Yeah. Because pre aren't part of the scheme. You could utilise their discount, which they offer if you bring your own reusable car.
Robbie Staniforth: Okay. And quite a few of the coffee retailers do that, like bring your own cup, it's 50B cheaper type thing.
James Piper: Exactly. So I think there's a real opportunity to lean into some of this in like, okay, take the cup on a Monday, return it on a Friday, use it during the week, you know, and we treat it more like office workers borrowing something over a sustained period of time, rather than, I want it back 10 minutes after you've used it. yeah, that's just an observation that we had that we thought actually that would be really powerful.
James says Glasgow Central Station's new reusable cup scheme was hugely positive
Let's talk about some of the negatives, because I think I should say like, that when we first arrived into Glasgow Central Station, we got in and we jumped straight into a Costa because we wanted to experience it and it was so positive. I've never seen a scheme like it. There were posters up, there were cups everywhere. The, barista was like, would you like your drink served in a borrow cup? I was like, this is amazing. This is so good. We actually went off then to a launch event after this and I just had to go up to STW and say, look, this is incredible. You know, I've never had a scheme that, that engaged. So we stopped into like six coffee shops. they all asked whether we wanted to borrow cup. It was all well advertised. It was impressive. It was really impressive. There was a downside because we got to Burger King, so I was trying to record some audio of someone saying, would you like that in a borrow cup so I could play it on this podcast. So I had a little mic on. We got to Burger King and I went up to the till and said, oh, can I You know, have a drink, please. Because the beauty with burking is they're doing cold cups as well. So you order a Coke, you can have it in borrow cup. So I said can I order a drink? And she was like oh, sorry, we don't do till service. You've got to order from the kiosk.
Robbie Staniforth: That's not very good audio.
James Piper: No, it's not. Maybe we'll play it now. Hi, can we just get a a regular Coke Zero? We can't do it here. Okay, all right, no worries. Okay, thank you. I then went over to the kiosk and impressively, the borrow cup was there. But there was no explanation of what it was. It just looked like you were paying a pound for a cup.
Robbie Staniforth: Oh, gosh. So you have to work it all out for yourself. It's just next to a self service kiosk.
James Piper: It's not great being on a kiosk. Yeah. So that was the Burger King issue. That definitely was an issue that you need to have someone at material explaining what the scheme is. Encouraging people to take up the scheme.
Robbie Staniforth: Totally requires customer engagement. Get it?
James Piper: Yeah, yeah. So anyway, m trying to record this audio, had a very impressive experience. We then went to the launch event, you know, super excited, chatting to everyone. It was really good. And I listened back to our audio and realised I hadn't quite captured what I wanted to capture. Like it was a bit muffled, I'm not sure what was happening. And so my colleague and I thought actually we'll just go back around the same six shops.
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James Piper: And it was fascinating because no one offered us a borrow cup. What? Some of the posters had been moved and some of the cups had been moved and it was like a completely different experience really. I was talking to someone from the Wall Street Journal the other day who said that's proper investigative journalist, James. You are a journalist. I was like, no, I just wanted good audio. There we go. That's what I did.
Robbie Staniforth: I'JUST a humble podc, went back to.
James Piper: The same six coffee shops and just had a completely different experience, you know, and I fed this back to them. I think what was happening is clearly there was a launch event happening. The brands were all attendingending the launch event. They had really briefed the staff to be like, push the bo. It's amazing. Tell everyone about it. And the second you have a shift change and you have different people behind the till who don't really understand the scheme, that's not great. And that is our biggest learning on, reusable cups. Right. That they do not work unless the coffee chains are excited by it and push it.
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah.
James Piper: No one in their five minutes or two seconds or whatever they have, as they arrive into Glasgow Central Station, they're running to their office, has time to think do I want a reusable cup? Do I want to pay a pound extra? Do I just want a paper cup? No one cares. And so what the coffee shop has to do do is say can I serve this to you in a borrow cup? It's really simple, you just have to do this thing, it's going to cost you a pound, bring it back to us at the end of the day, we'll give you a pound backag. You know, it's like you need that like keep it super simple for the consumer. And if you don't do that, these schemes are not used. And you know, I was chatting to Stuart and it's quite clear that coffee shops that are engaged are encouraging customers to take a cup, have a very high usage rate. Okay. And the coffee shops that aren't really talking about it don't really tell customers m customers about it, don't explain the system are not having a high usage rate.
Robbie Staniforth: So what you're saying there is they've got to engage. You can't just rely on comms or an automated system. You actually actively need to make it really simple for them, through a human interaction. Like everyone knows that coffee doesn't really very often get vended like automatically and you're in a queue, you're punching it into a computer, you're waiting for a machine to serve it. Obviously the vending machines in W.H. smith and other retailers would be the opposite. But in the average coffee shop there is a human interaction and that's an opportunity, is that what you're saying, to actually push something and create some behaviour change?
James Piper: Yeah, absolutely.
Now let's talk about deposits because I think deposits, I am anti depositor
Now let's talk about deposits because I think deposits, I mean I am ignore my views on drs, I am an anti depositor. I really dislike them in, in coffee cup schemes. I understand why we do them, we do them because we fear that people will steal cups. I understand that. But it creates a socioon economic difference between can I afford a reusable cut, can I afford a single use cup? You know, these are suddenly you're like single use is free and reuse cost money. And that just doesn't sit right with me. And I understand why we do it but one of the reasons we do it is because and whenever I've got this is a joke we say Very often, whenever we talk about reusable schemes, there's this running joke that it's got more trials than the Old Bailey and more pilots than Heathrow, you know, because lots of people do trials. Lots of people go, I'm putting in place this scheme for 12 weeks, therefore it needs to be set up in this way. And the reason they need a deposit is because over the course of 12 weeks, someone might steal three or four cups and you might not see a good return rate. If that was how we all bought our packaging, if it wasn't a trial, it wasn't 12 weeks, it was forever. How many cups do you need in your cupboard? You know, you might have three or four, you might take three or four for a few months and then you might go, go, I've got loads of these cups, I might as well take this one back. And time and time again we see that schemes that don't have deposits over time have a higher return rate. But you have to clench a little bit in the first few months because you're suddenly losing lots and lots of packaging. and so you've got to make that financially viable. But deposits work really well in like Blen and Palace Eden Project, where, you know, you've got, there's an entry to get in. It's costs lots of money to get there. Two pound on a cup isn't going to be that, that bad for anyone. And as you say, yeah, it's a captive audience that can easily return. I can see it in working in events, you go to a football match or whatever, you know, deposits work in those environments. I think on the go out and about, it's just a pain. And like I think we said on a couple of, a couple of episodes ago, you know, it took us 57 seconds, I think, to return the borrow cup
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and, we have time to do that. I really enjoy the process and practising and seeing how it works and learning, so I'm quite happy to do that. Is the average customer happy to do that? I'm not sure.
Robbie Staniforth: Compared to just putting it in a bin, which takes about one second, probably not.
James Piper: How much is your time worth? You know, if you've got a, 20p on that rather than a pound, at what point do you go, it's just not worth it, I'm just going to put it in the bin and then you've lost that reusable cup. So these are a few of the issues, you know, it's then compounded if you use vouchers instead of cash. Because people like, well, you've now restricted how I can use that money that I've put into the deposit. Look, I love these schemes. I think we should be in reusables. I would rather see a world where reusables took over our lives. And with the default rather than a nice to have alongside single use. The only way you can make them the default is by not having deposits because you can't create a system that costs a lot more, you know, for everyone as ah, standard that doesn't work. We've seen with Boston Tea Party that doesn't work. So you need to come up with a system that doesn't require deposits. You need to come up with a system that is forever so that people get used to it and get the correct behaviour change and big shout out to borrow up. I think what they're doing is amazing. Stuart knows I'm a big fan of the scheme and what's happening and I really hope it's heavily utilised. I think we would urge the coffee shops to really engage with it because the only way we're going to see significant usage is by them pushing it.
Scottish government considering introducing latte levy to reduce reliance on single use cups
Robbie, we're in Glasgow talking about borrow cup. We did talk about mandatory take back a couple of episodes ago, but we haven't talked about the latte levy which is a Scottish initiative. That's correct, isn't it? We sor of talked about latte levy in England but that disappeared before mandatory take back.
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, no, it did. And, and really interesting that current Environment Minister you talked about, Mary Cray, she was actually head of the Environmental Audit Committee way back in, I think it was 2018 and she was one of the people with a team that recommended to the then Conservative government that a latte leve should be something that they bring in to try and address how much cheaper it is for a single use cup versus a reuse cup. And the latte levy, which is obviously is a very cool phrase that's been coined, is basically saying that they will put a levy of 25p on every cup that gets sold by retailers. And what that they hope will do is reduce the sort of reliance and the preference for coffee chains to use single use cups and shift them towards alternatives. Now there's been some resistance and it's only by the end of this year will Scottish government confirm that yes, they are definitely going to go ahead with it. So it's still not absolutely certain but as stands, Scotland is still insistent that they want to try and introduce this and that's part of the reason why, the Glasgow trial took place. Because coffee chains are going to be looking at alternatives when they're suddenly stumped up with the cost of the single use cup itself, which obviously costs pence, you know, depending on who they are. it costs some money to buy the actual single use cup but on top of that they might get this 25p charge as well. And so unfortunately in England, the UK government aren't looking at doing anything in this area. And it's quite interesting that how things have changed over the intervening, five or six years for the minister who did think this was a good idea when not in government and now in government is focusing on much bigger things like extended producer responsibility, as you mentioned, in her reply to Boston Tea Party.
James Piper: Yeah, and this is what we need. I mean single use cups, reusables are always going to be more expensive, they're thicker plastic. If you're not using plastic, it's going to be a more expensive material. They are just more expensive because you'll reusing them. So you've got to bring up the cost of single use to kind of make it compete with reusable so that coffee chains are more likely to use it. So things like the latte lev bring up the cost of single use cups and then that makes reusable more economically viable. So just to summarise, I mean it is my belief, I really wish I was wrong. I don't think customers really care. I think customers say they care, they'll fill in a survey saying we want to save the planet. Single use coffee cups are awful and then they will go and buy their coffee cup in the morning and not think about it. If they thought about it, they'd bring reusables and we wouldn't be in this mess. And, you know, Boston Tea Party wouldn't have lost 25% of sales. I think we've got evidence to show that people in the main don't really care and therefore we have to make it really simple for them and we have to develop reusable schemes that are super simple
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James Piper: for the customer to engage with, where the customer doesn't have to do anything different. And so for me, just to summarise all the things we've talked about, you need speedy returns, you need a way of making that return seconds, not minutes, really. We shouldn't be using websites and apps, that's a different thing. We'll talk about tech and kind of recycling schemes in the future. I'm sure the barista needs to offer these schemes every Time. It needs to be easy for the coffee shops. They also need to be accurate. I heard, someone in borrow cup, we said, oh, where do you return the cup? And they said, oh, you can return it anywhere. Including Starbucks. Well, Starbucks aren't part of the scheme, so you can't, you know, so the baristas didn't know their own scheme, which is a really tricky. When you've got so many shift changes, so many different members of staff, it is always tricky to educate people on how these schemes work. That happens every time. It's not as easy as here's a paper cup, just throw it in the bin. We need a levy that's applied to the cost of single use cup to bring the single use cost up to reusables. No more trials. We've got, you know, we really feel you need systemic change, not trials. And you know, borrow up will continue. It was like 12 weeks to start with. But I am m sure it will continue because the system is already set up and I'm hoping that that will develop behaviour change and we'll see more and more people using it. You know, there's enough things here for us to go, how could we improve this? And in my opinion, I would not have deposits. I think, creates systemic change, make it super easy for people to give you back the cup. And over time people will not take them. I think, that has been proven time and time again. But you've got to be bold and you've got to go, we're not doing this for 12 weeks, we're doing this for 10 years, you know, and it's going to take a year for people to always bring back their cup because we're creating true behaviour change. But hey, that's how we should all buy our stuff. We should all be offered something reusable and then take it back somewhere and feel like we should do that.
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, no, it requires the behaviour change and the social norming that that's just what you do when you buy a coffee rather than what is the current paradigm, which is I just get given a paper cup and I sling it in whatever bin I'm hovering over when it happens that I finish my cup of coffee.
James Piper: Rubbish or not. Sam message us on the website and said, hi guys, I'm just clearing out my garage and I have a bag full of household magnets. What would be the best way to dispose to them? Would it be through metal recycling at the tip or would that input impact the sorting of existing metals?
Robbie Staniforth: Oh my gosh, what a nightmare. I don't know what the answer to this is.
James Piper: I reached out to some people because I thought we're not having a hot water bottle situation again.
Robbie Staniforth: Oh, very good.
James Piper: I reached out to quite a few people because obviously, I mean, magnets can be recycled, right? You know, that is a they'metal that's a princ's metal. Of course they can be recycled, but we think in this instance it's probably rubbish. You know, they will stick to everything. They will be a nightmare in the recycling centre. lots of things are made of metal in the world of recycling. And magnets would be flying around getting stuck to stuff. So I was thinking maybe you could send it to a separate metal bin at the, dump. But as I said, I've checked with a couple of people and I can't find anyone who thinks that's a good idea. So we're going to say rubbish, I think.
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. It's important to be clear about it, isn't it? Like, so technically they can be recycled and used again, you know, melted down or whatever. But actually it's the process of getting it there and it not sticking to all of the other stuff and being a total nightmare on the way, that means it's actually rubbish. I think I agree in this instance because otherwise we would just be saying everything is recyclable in some way, shape or form, isn't it?
James Piper: Yeah. Now, obviously there are magnets that get recycled because lots of our electricals contain magnets. So headphones, fridge doors, if you think about how a fridge closes, tvs, vacuums, hard drives, they all contain magnets. So remember to recycle your electricals correctly, remember to find a place to take them back to because they will extract those magnets and recycle them. A lot of those are made with rare earth metals and it's super important that we extract that and recycle it.
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. So if you've got those magnets, try reuse them, gift them to someone. Maybe A slightly strange gift, but magnets are useful, aren't they? Like, try find a use for them.
James Piper: Lovely. Yeah, you could do that. Just stick them on the fridge as a reminder of what a good reusr you are. Rubbish question.
How could EPR improve reusable packaging? This question came from me
So, this question has not come from anyone, this came from me. Now, I don't know how we're going to word this into a question. I'll call it, how could EPR improve reusable packaging? And this came about because I heard something. We have recently been involved with a global reuse summit and There was a really interesting stat about France and I
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just did not know it. And we sort of went away and looked at it and it led to the question, how could EPR improve reusable packaging? And I guess that's because France is at the forefront of reuse. Is that fair, Robbie?
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, no, that's exactly right. And with their extended producer responsibility over there, the. The organisation that runs the system is supposed to ring fence 5% of the funds to be used on reuse and reuse infrastructure. So they've sort of got a mechanism basically to earmark some things to actually change the way that packaging gets used from single use to reuse.
James Piper: This is the start. I couldn't believe they're ring fencing 5% of their EPR. So for, you know, in the UK, that would be what, 8, 80 million? Yeah, give or take £100 million, something like that. Being ring fenced, I mean, that would make a massive difference for reuse. So when we talk about reusable cup schemes, it's like, well, that would. That would be huge. It would be twice the cost that you would need to do a mandatory take back. Because we said that was about 50 million. So, yeah, I just. I think well done to France for doing this. How do we get the UK to do it? And I think that's what led me to this question of how could EPR improve reusable packaging?
France has set targets to have 5% of reusable packaging by 2023
Interestingly, 0.66% of our listeners are from France, so hopefully you're enjoying this section. bonjour. Bonjour. so. And since 2023, France have also had reusable containers, if you're dining in. So when I went over to Nice quite recently, actually, I had to go into a MA McDonald's to see this, because in the McDonald's in Nice, in France, they have solid plastic.
Robbie Staniforth: Oh, my gosh. So you've seen. I'm genuinely jealous that you've been and seen this.
James Piper: It's. It's very cool. And, you know, I think that they've set targets to have 5% of reusable packaging by 2023. I'm not sure how they're doing against that. And 10% of reusable packaging by 2027. So France has really taken the lead in reuse. Now, one of the things they have that I'm a bit critical of is they do have this. Retail spaces bigger than 400 metres square, must provide reusable containers for products sold in bulk. And that doesn't have to be free, but it could be free and My understanding of this is the way that that's been done is lots of stores have gone o just put reuse at the back. Like we need to have a reuse station. By law, we just put it the back and customers won't use it. And I kind of wish the legislation had like a. And it's got to be at the front and it's got to look like this and it's to take it. And I know why people don't do it because, you know, retail space is so valuable and all this kind of stuff. But I think you need like, retailers will always find the loophole.
Robbie Staniforth: That's exactly right. I mean really what they want is for it to be a proportion of retailer's sales ultimately are in reusable packaging, not in single use packaging. But that's quite a hard thing to regulate and legislate against, isn't it? Like make companies sell stuff in a certain way.
James Piper: It's quite hard, yeah, absolutely. So to answer my, my own question, how could EPR improve reusable packaging? Well, come on, uk ring fen some of the EPR funds for reuse. That would be amazing. Definitely tell restaurants that have takeaway but offer dine in use takeaway packaging for din in that they should be reusing packaging. And I love the idea of getting retailers to have to have some form of reuse in their stores. Like these are three things that could really improve reuse rates.
Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, and you're exactly right. Extended producer responsibility is the mechanism that you could bolt some of this stuff onto to really make a difference.
Rubbish Podcast wants you all on Discord to help spread our message
James Piper: Great, great episode. I've literally just had a message through on our discord like this is live, so thank you. I think it's Ian. I recognise his like number now, his username. What's Ian said here? So the chair of the Conservative Party has just been on BBC Breakfast saying that we should vote Conservative in the local elections because Labour and Lib Dem councils like to do foolish things like four weekly Bing collections.
Robbie Staniforth: Oh my gosh.
James Piper: I give up. Should we just stop the book? I can't. Oh my God. Government going vote for us because we won't do things like improve recycling rates. It's like, ah, it's literally the exact.
Robbie Staniforth: Opposite of the message we're trying to get out. Vote for, us and you won't have to recycle anymore. O God, that's no good.
James Piper: No wonder they don't want net zero by 2050. They're taking away all of our recycling anyway, that's what makes our podcast important. That's why we want you all on Discord sharing the stuff. So please join our Discord with the link is in our show Notes. Follow us at Rubbish Podcast email us talking rubbishpodcastmail.com Remember your reusable cup. That's the main takeaway from today. Not takeaway, that's the main bring home for today. I'm so happy my voice has survived. I don't know how this is going toa sound. I'm going toa listen back straight after because I'm like, how different do I sound today compared to normal?
Robbie Staniforth: Everyone's going toa be saying you sound a lot better. James, you're gon have to stay ill.
James Piper: O I ve gotta take up smoking. Okay.
00:55:00
James Piper: Why did you take up swoking? because everyone got used to my voice being quite husky. Thank you all so much for listening. Please leave us a review if you get a second. It helps us really grow. And tell all your friends and family about us because honestly, we're having so much fun just chatting to loads and loads of people about waste and recycling and sustainability and all sorts of things. And we can only do that by having lots of listeners. So please continue to tell people about us. Thank you so much everyone. See you next week. Bye.
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