7-Eleven Australia has helped save more than 20 million takeaway cups from landfill, and signed up 100 schools to its recycling program.
The convenience chain’s coffee cup rescue initiative has reached a milestone in its three-year partnership with Simply Cups, a program that helps separate the cups from other waste streams and using innovative new technologies transforms them into items of higher value.
7-Eleven became the pioneer partner of Simply Cups, an initiative of Closed Loop, in 2018. Each year the chain sells more than 80 million cups.
Angus McKay, 7-Eleven Australia CEO and managing director, said “Twenty million cups recycled is a great number to reach, but we want to increase the rate of recycling. We have more than 660 cup recycling units installed in our stores, and there’s hundreds of other recycling stations we’ve supported being installed in schools and other locations,” McKay said.
In late 2020, a new 7-Eleven #CupRescue Schools program was launched with the goal of empowering young people to champion reducing single use cups in landfill in their local communities, and there are already 100 schools participating.
“We’ll provide participating schools with free cup collection units to enable students and staff to collect cups at their school. All the school needs to do is collect cups and drop them off at their partnering 7-Eleven store.
“I’d love to get cup recycling at every high school in Australia with a local 7-Eleven,” said McKay.
Closed Loop managing director, Rob Pascoe, said “Many people either believe single use cups can go in the kerbside recycling or alternatively that the only option is the red landfill bin. This isn’t correct.
“We are thrilled to have surpassed 20 million cups rescued from landfill. We’d like to thank 7-Eleven, our pioneering partner, who have the set-up the most cup collection points, and collected the most cups. The 7-Eleven Australia #CupRescue Schools Program has been a big success and is helping educate the next generation about how to better recycle.”
