Ecosurety reveals its final Exploration Fund project: the Bristol Refill Cup Scheme

Jane Martin, Head of Development at City to Sea, said: “Our Refill campaign already stops over 100 million pieces of plastic a year, but we are ambitious to do more.

“By expanding the Refill campaign to help people not only find free drinking water and other locations to refill on the go, our goal is to turn the tide on single-use plastic across the city – helping to keep our streets, parks and iconic harbourside free from pollution.”

City to Sea says the reusable ‘returnable’ cup scheme is designed to prevent 250,000 single-use hot drink cups from entering the waste stream every day. The project will act as a pilot to better understand the most effective way to operate the system and engage the public before rolling it out in other major cities across the country in the future.

How it works

The Bristol Refill Cup Scheme will enable businesses to subscribe to the scheme and order reusable cups at a low-cost subscription basis. Customers who come in for a coffee will be given the option to have their coffee in a single-use cup or a reusable cup - with the environmental benefits communicated to them.

Retailers will use the Refill app to scan a QR code on the cup to transfer the ownership of the cup to the customer. Customers can then use the app to manage the cup and to check for notifications of when and where to return the cup. When the cup is returned to participating retailers, it will be scanned back in, washed, and reused.

The Refill app helps consumers to find numerous locations to eat, drink and shop with less plastic. The Bristol Refill Cup Scheme will be the first of its kind to direct people to ‘borrow and return schemes’ through the Refill app.

Sustainability at stake

New research released today by City to Sea to mark World Refill Day, suggests that the cost-of-living crisis is forcing consumers to make less sustainable purchasing decisions and making it harder to avoid single-use plastic, despite this still being a big concern for 95% of people surveyed.

The research reveals that cost now ranks higher than sustainability with 40% of consumers citing cost as the biggest barrier to them reducing their use of single-use plastics. 48% of Brits report that they have changed where they shop or what they have bought in the last six months, and 60% are now prioritising cost over any other criteria.

Almost two thirds of those surveyed (63%) said they felt frustrated (31%), powerless (21%) or angry (11%) about the amount of plastic that comes with their weekly shop; with almost another quarter feeling sad (13%) or worried (11%). However, 93% of people surveyed said they would like to see more refill and reuse options available reflecting a desire to “do more” to tackle plastic pollution.

Read the rest of the research findings here.