#SQUAREMILECHALLENGE
Paper Cup Recyling Project Final Campaign Report July 2017
CONTENTS Executive Summary
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Coalition
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Recycling Process
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Recycling Network
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Phased Approach
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Phase 1
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Recyling Network
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Location of Recling Bins
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Launch Campaign
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Measurement & Evaluation
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Phase 2
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Learning & Outcomes
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Legacy
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Further Information
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2.5 billion paper coffee cups are thrown away each year in the UK which equates to about 7 million per day. Paper cups are made from paper with a plastic lining to make the cup waterproof, a combination of materials which standard recycling processes can rarely separate, meaning that less than 1% are actually recycled even when placed in mixed recycling waste.
and 5 million by the end of the year in a two phase approach. The largest paper cup recycling project launched to date in the UK, the Challenge created a network of paper cup recycling facilities across the City of London, installing recycling bins on the streets, in coffee stores and in offices and launched this recycling network with a high-profile engagement and media campaign.
The Square Mile Challenge sought to develop Hubbub’s work on paper cup recycling, building in learnings from the #1MoreShot trial in Manchester and testing new approaches to take the project to a larger scale.
Phase one of the campaign ran during April, successfully collecting half a million paper cups for recycling in a single month. Phase two sees the Challenge run until the end of 2017 to enable the recycling facilities and behaviour to be embedded, seeking to collect and recycle 5 million paper cups by the end of the calendar year.
From 3rd April 2017 the Square Mile Challenge aimed to collect and recycle half a million paper cups in one month,
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COALITION The Square Mile Challenge has been supported and funded by a coalition of organisations with a mutual interest in this issue.
Barley Communications helped develop and ran the project’s media campaign, capturing the attention of local, national and international press.
As in the #1MoreShot trial in Manchester, Hubbub partnered with Simply Cups, a paper cup recovery and recycling service, to develop the project, with Simply Cups leading the operational aspects of the campaign. Working with Simply Cups, product designers ashortwalk are working with the recycled material to design new plastic products for community use in the City of London.
The project was made possible with support and funding from the UK coffee industry comprising retailers Caffè Nero, Costa, Marks & Spencer, McDonalds, Nestlé, Pret a Manger and Starbucks, Bunzl Catering Supplies and paper cup manufacturers Benders Paper Cups, Dart Products Europe, Huhtamaki and SEDA International Packaging Group.
Campaign partners were the City of London Corporation and Network Rail at Liverpool Street and Cannon Street stations.
Finally, the project also recruited 36 major businesses within the City to install paper cup recycling facilities within their offices, including Lloyd’s, Deloitte and ING Bank.
RECYCLING PROCESS Simply Cups ran a collection and recycling service across the recycling network, transferring collected paper cups to their processing plant in Langley for batch sorting and a weigh in towards the Challenge target. Following the first month, the material has now been transferred on for recycling through two processes: • The first recycling process pulps the paper cups and separates out the paper and plastic. The recovered paper fibres are then used to make tubes and cores for products such as gravy granules.
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• The second shreds the whole paper cup, processing it into a resin. This resin is mixed with recycled plastic to create a new plastic material which can be manufactured into a range of new products, from pens to park benches. As part of our partnership with the City of London, products made from the second recycling process will be donated to the local community. The products are likely to be used as part of a new community space at Aldgate.
RECYCLING NETWORK The recycling infrastructure for the Square Mile Challenge sought to build on the approach taken in the #1MoreShot trial in Manchester and to integrate learnings from this campaign. Hubbub created a coffee cup-shaped recycling bin for use in the #1MoreShot trial, demonstrating that the public are willing to recycle their paper cups if given access to recycling bins. Survey data showed that a simple design and bright colours are an effective way to engage people on the street, and the Challenge used these bins on the City of London’s streets primarily to raise awareness of the campaign, and also to enable the general public to recycle their paper cups on the street. The Manchester trial data also showed that recycling bins located in managed spaces, such as cafes, libraries and hospitals, were more successful in collecting larger volumes of paper cups than recycling bins placed on the street. These bins in managed spaces also suffered far less contamination, and so this approach was further developed. In Manchester Pret a Manger had trialled an in-store recycling bin for customer use, and this approach was expanded for the Challenge. By collaborating with seven of the major coffee retailers we were able to install recycling bins within all of their City of London stores, with a
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total of 131 recycling points offered in coffee shops across the Square Mile. This collaboration, the first of its kind, was crucial to creating a customer-facing approach shared by all the brands, meaning that a member of the public could recycle any paper cup in any of the participating retailers’ stores. We were keen to test the public’s attitude to recycling within coffee stores as an alternative to recycling bins placed on the street, as local authorities are unlikely to be able to adopt this approach at scale. Major employers were also recruited to join the Challenge to test the office environment’s potential for collecting paper cups for recycling. With large offices in the City commonly having an on-site coffee shop, café or canteen, and using large volumes of disposable paper cups each day, they were an interesting environment to test, providing a wellmanaged space and clear communication channels to engage employees in the campaign. By installing recycling bins in a number of different environments we were able to create a more comprehensive ‘network’ of recycling infrastructure. This enabled us to engage people in their roles as the general public, customers of the coffee retailers, and employees, and to compare each environment to see which approach to paper cup recycling is most effective.
PHASED APPROACH Hubbub and Simply Cups developed a two phase approach to the Square Mile Challenge. Phase one launched on 3rd April 2017 with a target of collecting and recycling half a million paper cups over the course of this month, and phase two kicked in at the beginning of May and continuing until December 2017, with its own stretch target of collecting and recycling an additional 4.5 million paper cups in the City of London to bring the total number recycled to 5 million. This two phase structure was helpful for a number of reasons. The creation of a
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launch month responded to the length of time the City of London Corporation could give permission for bins to be placed on the City’s streets, and the launch month target of recycling half a million paper cups demonstrated the campaign’s ambition and created a clear focus on this issue for a defined time period. Phase two of the campaign responds to the need to allow the recycling infrastructure and new behaviours to embed within the City, ensuring that the campaign has a longterm impact and is given the opportunity to become business as usual.
PHASE ONE APRIL 2017
Phase one of the Square Mile Challenge launched on 3rd April 2017 and continued until 30th April. The focus was on installing a comprehensive recycling network within the City and on the launch of the Square Mile Challenge campaign, driving engagement through public installations, customer and employee engagement, and a high-profile press and social media campaign.
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RECYCLING NETWORK In readiness for 3rd April, Hubbub’s coffee cup-shaped bins were installed in seven busy street locations in conjunction with the City of London, ensuring each was nearby to an existing general waste bin to reduce potential contamination. Permission for these bins was granted for a month and collection tubes on the street cleaning team’s carts were trialled as a potential sustainable solution. Following enthusiastic feedback from the team these are now in long-term use. The seven retailers supporting the Challenge worked to install recycling facilities at each of their stores across the City, with the approach varied across the retailers and influenced by existing schemes and space restrictions. Each retailer used Square Mile Challenge branded communications to link their stores to the campaign, creating a
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network of 131 stores offering recycling to their customers and the general public, with all retailers accepting any coffee cup for recycling, regardless of where it was purchased. We don’t have a full picture of how many cups were collected through this channel as the retailers’ existing waste contracts meant that Simply Cups weren’t in receipt of all retailers’ collected cups. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the bins were welcomed by staff and customers, but usage was relatively low. 84% of people surveyed as part of the campaign’s measurement and evaluation said that they would use recycling bins if every store installed them, and so we believe there is potential and that further work needs to be done to establish in-store recycling as a major recycling channel.
Businesses were recruited via the City of London’s Clean City Award Scheme and through the trade and national press, with part of the funding for the campaign used to subsidise the cost of installing recycling facilities within 36 businesses with offices in the Square Mile. Funding covered the business’ first year membership of Simply Cups, free collections of paper cups in April and 5 recycling bins for placement around the office, and many businesses chose to purchase additional bins. This in-office recycling channel proved very successful, with 87% of cups collected by the Challenge collected through business, and further proved the approach of working within managed spaces. The Challenge also sought to access the rail network through a relationship with Network Rail, aiming to install recycling bins within Liverpool Street station to access commuters’ paper cups. Unfortunately, the security situation proved too complex to achieve this, with a final decision from Network Rail that no new customer-facing bins were to be installed in the station. We were able to install a small number of bins within retailers in Liverpool Street station
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to collect cups back-of-house, and Liverpool Street station contributed 4% of the paper cups collected during the campaign through this approach. In order to provide a public-facing cup recycling facility we also developed a pop-up approach to collecting cups in a station environment, using a further three coffee cup-shaped bins and a small team to collect cups from passing commuters. This approach was of limited success, with low collection numbers and a high logistical cost, and after testing it over a number of rush hours we abandoned this channel. Finally, we took the opportunity to access paper cups at the London Coffee Festival which was scheduled over a weekend in April, offering paper cup recycling for the first time at this event. Re-signing a number of bins across the festival site allowed us to collect a proportion of the 250,000 paper cups used across the weekend, and the festival contributed 12,300 cups to the Challenge. With communications used across the Festival site and further collaboration with the organisers we believe greater recycling figures could be achieved in further years, and there is great potential for these types of event.
L O C AT I O N O F R E C Y C L I N G B I N S The phase one recycling network comprised: • 7 on-street bins (marked in yellow on the below map) • 131 in-store bins (marked in blue) • 36 in-office bins (marked in grey) (each business used a minimum of 5 recycling bins, but is counted as a single recycling point)
For greater detail please see the map online here.
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L A U N C H C A M PA I G N Phase one of the Square Mile Challenge launched on 3rd April 2017 with an engagement and press campaign to raise awareness and encourage people to participate by recycling their paper cups across the recycling network. Targeting people who live and work in the City of London, as well as the public and commentators in the rest of London and further afield, the launch aimed to educate that paper cups can and are being recycled and to show what can be achieved through an industry-wide collaboration. Hubbub developed the look and feel of the engagement campaign, basing the design on the collateral which had worked well in the #1MoreShot trial in Manchester. The design work used
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bright colours and a simple messaging framework to engage people as they moved through the City, using the yellow coffee cup-shaped recycling bin as the core visual. The collaborative nature of the campaign allowed this visual identity to be used across the recycling network, with retailers and businesses using similar collateral, with the aim that the campaign would become visible across the City of London. In addition to this collateral two public engagement pieces were created, designed to work in tandem as press hooks for the campaign. Craftwork Projects in Brighton created a skyline of the City of London made from
paper cups and housed in a Perspex cube, which was placed outside the Bank of England for the first half of April and in the festival gardens at St Paul’s cathedral for the second half of the month. London Contemporary Voices became our coffee choir, launching the campaign to commuters at Liverpool Street station during the morning rush hour on Monday 3rd April with songs adapted with coffeerelated lyrics. A video of this activity was later shared on Youtube and has had more than 250,000 views to date. The participating retailers used Square Mile Challenge branded collateral in each of their stores to link their recycling to the rest of the network, displaying a window vinyl alongside posters and table talkers. This collateral worked in conjunction with online material, with videos and social media cards shared online. The participating businesses were provided with a pack of assets, including bin signage, posters, an infographic and a video to display around their offices. These pieces of collateral were supported by online messaging to employees to engage staff with the campaign and adopt paper cup recycling as a new behaviour. Hubbub supported the campaign via social media throughout April, engaging with retailers, businesses and the general public to encourage involvement in the campaign and answering questions and queries. The campaign launch was very successful, generating opportunities to see in the UK press of 307 million, and a social media reach of 3.15 million.
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M E A S U R E M E N T & E V A L U AT I O N During phase one of the campaign we worked with Resource Futures to measure and evaluate the Challenge’s launch campaign. Resource Futures designed an evaluation framework to measure the public’s attitude towards paper cup recycling prior to the launch of the Challenge and then at points throughout the launch month, accessing invaluable data on the impact of the campaign from an education and awareness point of view. 462 face-to-face interviews were conducted over a four week period, as well as 700 paper cup behaviour observations, all conducted nearby to Square Mile Challenge bins and installations. The surveys showed that over three quarters of respondents (77%) buy takeaway coffee at least once per week. Three quarters of respondents (74%) were unaware that disposable paper cups could not be recycled as cardboard
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before the campaign, and the educational element helped decrease this to an average of 67% once the campaign started. Considering that this issue wasn’t in the public eye until last year we believe this is encouraging. The public also appear willing to go out of their way to recycle a disposable cup. The number of respondents saying they would use recycling bins if all high-street coffee chains introduced them rose from 69% before the campaign to 84% afterwards, and 49% of respondents said they would use these recycling bins ‘all of the time’ or ‘most of the time’. The proportion of people who had seen activity in the area encouraging them to recycle their paper cups increased each week, reaching 77% in the final week. This is likely caused by message repetition and continued exposure allowing the messages to sink in. The proportion of respondents who said that Hubbub’s interventions made them think about where they dispose of their paper cup increased each week, with an average of 91% of respondents influenced by the campaign.
PHASE TWO
M A Y- D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 7 Phase two of the Challenge began on 1st May, with a target of collecting and recycling an additional 4.5 million paper cups in the City of London between May and the end of the calendar year to total 5 million across the full campaign. This stretch target ensures that the campaign is sustainable, maintaining the momentum created through the launch month and allowing paper cup recycling to become embedded as a habit and become business-as-usual in the City. The recycling network has changed slightly for phase 2, with the on-street bins removed as agreed in advance with the City of London and the council’s street cleansing team continuing with a collection system on their street cleaning carts, and an adjustment in the businesses taking part. At the time of this report 21 of the 36 businesses who signed up for the Challenge are continuing with paper cup recycling, and Simply Cups are in discussion with a host of new businesses who have been in touch since the launch of the Challenge. The participating retailers are continuing with paper cup recycling in-store, with the exception of Caffè Nero, who at the time of writing are investigating alternative in-store collection system.
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LEARNINGS AND OUTCOMES • The Challenge demonstrated that offices and employers can play an important role in collecting paper cups for recycling, acting as a well-managed environment with the ability to communicate with employees in a clear and sustained way. • Survey data shows that the public are keen to use recycling bins in-store at coffee shops, with 84% of people questioned for the Challenge saying they would use in-store recycling if it were offered consistently. There is more work to do on communicating this element of the recycling network as usage of the in-store recycling bins was relatively low. • The use of on-street bins was important to the launch of the Challenge, with this infrastructure cited by 61% of people surveyed as having attracted their attention to the campaign. However, they suffered from contamination, with the flat-topped design attracting waste of all types and coffee spillage onto pavements. • Our ambition to work with Network Rail to collect cups from train travellers and commuters wasn’t successful, with the security limitations within Liverpool Street
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station limiting our ability to work with a tested system. The complexity of operating within the rail network and similar public spaces is an important learning from the campaign. • Brightly coloured and visually engaging communications are engaging to the public, and the unique Perspex cube installation, in particular, worked well to raise awareness of the campaign. • Use of an ambitious target worked to create a media and public focus on the campaign and kick-started a change in behaviour that would likely have taken longer otherwise. • Consistent messages at the point of purchase, on the street and at work were successful alongside the press and social media campaign in creating an awareness of the campaign and to encouraging the public to change their behaviour and recycle their paper cups. • Finally, the collaboration of different organisations working together to achieve the same goal was imperative to the campaign, and we thank each organisation for working with us to make the Square Mile Challenge a success.
LEGACY The Square Mile Challenge is ongoing, and so its full legacy is still developing. However, we believe that the campaign will be successful in establishing paper cups as a new recycling stream within coffee shops and businesses in the City of London. The campaign has proven the potential of businesses as a recycling environment for paper cups, enabling further development in this area, and helping to create a business case for business to demonstrate a clear case for taking up paper cup recycling based on costs as well as environmental responsibility. The Challenge has shown what is possible through a collaboration of coffee retailers, and we are delighted that they hope to collaborate on other areas of mutual interest. Encouraging survey data
shows that the public are keen to recycle in-store and demonstrates the case for a new focus on this part of the recycling network. The Challenge’s profile as a campaign has also prompted enquiries from a host of individuals and organisations keen to establish paper cup recycling in their local area, with more than 80 enquiries and interest in expanding this approach to areas in the UK and beyond. Our ambition is to continue our work on paper cup recycling in order to develop and refine our approach, working to create a flexible model which can be applied in a variety of contexts. We hope to work with the UK’s coffee industry on further projects and to open source our model within the next two years.
F U R T H E R I N F O R M AT I O N For more information please contact:
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Kate Watson kate@hubbub.org.uk 020 3701 7544