INDUSTRY PROFILE
Leading the change KeepCup Co-founder and Managing Director Abigail Forsyth tells BeanScene why systemic change is required to truly address the problem of coffee cup waste and the takeaway mentality.
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hough KeepCup celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2019, it has only been in the last few years that consumers and the industry have caught up with its message of single-use waste reduction. “Ten years ago, people didn’t know that disposable coffee cups weren’t recyclable and the massive plastic waste problem we are now facing globally wasn’t really being discussed,” says Abigail Forsyth, Co-founder and Managing Director of KeepCup. “But people have woken up to the
KeepCup believes government intervention in single-use disposables would cause an instant change in consumer behaviour.
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issue, realised that single-use plastic – indeed all avoidable single-use items – are a huge problem, and that these little coffee cups contain plastic.” When the waste dilemma was raised to prominence in Australia by the 2017 ABC television series War on Waste, the café industry was quick to respond to the coffee cup crisis. “People are looking hard at the volume of waste they are producing, and disposable coffee cups have become a large part of that conversation because they are something you do not actually need,” Abigail says.
KeepCup is not the only organisation to attempt to address coffee cup waste, with numerous companies launching compostable, recyclable, or reusable options. However, Abigail feels some of these initiatives fail to prevent waste from going to landfill. “Many cafés survive on takeaway sales, which are a huge part of their revenue, so they are desperate for an answer,” Abigail says. “They’d like to do the right thing, and compostable cups present themselves as a solution, but most of the time they’re not actually composted. They need a dedicated waste stream going to the right facilities, very few of which exist in Australia. And as Australia burns, reducing impact on native forest for paper pulp is critical.” The Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation Working Group 2018 Report says only an estimated 18 per cent of councils have, or plan to have, kerbside organics collection, and even fewer of these accept compostable packaging. Abigail says the compost generated from plant-based packaging is often considered low quality. “In composting, you’re trying to produce good organic material so when it goes to the farm, it will improve the soil and grow more crops. You won’t get much of that if you feed compost machines with cardboard and plant-
