Yesterday, The Cup Fund scheme was launched at Marylebone and Cavendish Campus, offering coffee cup recycling points and a reverse vending machine to increase the amount of paper cups recycled in the UK.

reverse-vending-machine

The University of Westminster has been granted funding from ‘The Cup Fund’ in partnership with our waste management and recycling contractors, Bywaters. The Cup Fund is a new initiative to scale paper cup recycling, since currently only 4 per cent of paper cups are recycled. 

The launch of The Cup Fund recycling scheme has seen orange coffee cup recycling bins distributed across Westminster campuses. At Marylebone Campus, a reverse vending machine has also been introduced. Instead of putting money into the machine and receiving a product, the user puts a coffee cup into the machine to be recycled.

The reverse vending machine operates in a lucky dip style, meaning that some users will win a £20 voucher for a selected eco-friendly store, such as Planet Organic or Lush.

Talking about the launch of the initiative, Environment & Sustainability Manager Katherine Bojczuk said: “The Sustainability Team has been working hard to make improvements to the way the University operates so we can ensure we are constantly reducing our environmental impacts.

“We have had a lot of colleagues and students ask what we can do to reduce single-use coffee cup waste, and so we hope that by taking part in The Cup Fund we can make a significant impact.”

Find out more about The Cup Fund.

Sign up to the new Sustainability Champions Network by emailing [email protected].

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