Clean-Up Crusaders

WORDS ROXANNE MCCARTY-O’KANE PHOTOS JAN STRANDSTROM

“ It’s really easy to forget the damage that takeaway coffee cups do to the environment because they’re so integrated into our society ”

FROM POSTCARD-WORTHY pristine environments to places where pollution has created an ugly mask that covers any natural beauty, Dylan Kuipersmith has seen it all over a lifetime of playing and working on the ocean and travelling the world.

The Mountain Creek resident and his partner Kim Olsson are on a mission to change the single-use mentality that has gripped society by changing people’s habits one at a time. Their first target? Takeaway coffee cups. And they have developed an innovative approach to tackling the plague of takeaway coffee cup waste. Rather than simply preaching about the negative environmental impacts, they are giving away free crowdfunded coffees to those who actively change their habits.

So, what did you drink your last coffee out of? Chances are, you grabbed one ‘to go’ and took away a single-use coffee cup. But once you are done with it, the cup you used for all of five minutes

could be around for centuries. It’s something most of us often don’t think about.

But this is what propels Dylan and Kim and they are concentrating on the Sunshine Coast to bring about lasting change for our local environment.

The duo has worked on a number of environmental projects since they met in the Whitsunday Islands six years ago, but their latest, the Crucify the Cup Campaign, has a simple message – now is the time to get rid of takeaway coffee cups.

Dylan says they are keen to replicate the coffee giveaway with the continued assistance of crowdfunding and corporate sponsors. But his long-term goal is to see free coffees on offer every weekend at multiple cafes on the Coast.

“It is through this method of positive reinforcement that real change can happen,” he says. “It’s really easy to forget the damage that takeaway coffee cups do to the environment because

they’re so integrated into our society that people don’t even think twice about it.

“If we can change the habit of just one person, we are saving multiple single-use coffee cups from ending up in landfill each week, and once more people see them do it, there is a group mentality that the rest will follow. That’s the key and the way to change society and that’s the way we are doing it now.”

The idea for the Crucify the Cup Campaign came about as Kim and Dylan were discussing what could be done about the masses of coffee cups that were thrown away at the end of each shift at a Mooloolaba cafe Kim used to work for.

It is estimated Australians use one billion disposable coffee cups each year and the ABC’s documentary series War on Waste demonstrated this visually by filling a Melbourne tram car with more than 50,000 takeaway coffee cups and driving it through the city. This is how many cups Australians send to landfill every half hour.

“When dining in, some customers would opt for a lidded single-use coffee cup because, in contrast to a reusable mug, the lidded cup would keep their coffees warmer for longer. This is a valid reason, however because single use cups must be abolished, a lidded reusable cup is the solution,” Kim says. “I feel like there are already a lot of cafes on the Coast that are trying to be more environmentally friendly by offering biodegradable cups and straws, but there is no better way than not using them at all.

“There are already some people who carry their own reusable cups around with them, but we want it to become more than a

fad; we want it to become the common thing that everyone does.”

While you might think takeaway cups, which look as if they are made wholly from paper and cardboard, can be recycled, the vast majority of them have a plastic film lining on the inside that cannot be processed through traditional recycling channels. Therefore, it ends up in landfill.

There have been some exciting recent developments, with private enterprises focusing solely on how to recycle the plastic components of the takeaway cups through a specialised process, freeing up the rest of the cup to be recycled through traditional channels. But we are yet to see this become a viable option for coffee aficionados.

You don’t have to wait until the next round of the campaign to feel good about reusing a coffee cup, as there are cafes across the Sunshine Coast that already offer BYO cup discounts to those who show the initiative and choose reusable options.

The Responsible Cafes website lists 25 cafes from Kings Beach to Coolum Beach that offer discounts ranging from 20 to 50 cents to customers who bring their own cups. While it doesn’t sound like much, if you need a caffeine fix twice a day, 50 cents is a saving of $7 a week and $364 in your pocket each year.

Dylan, now 34, has been trying to find the right method to break through the white noise of societal habits and set people free from their wasteful ways since he founded Crowd Clean World at the age of 28. The global campaign encouraged people to spend five minutes picking up rubbish in their local area and share their results on social media.

While this attracted a dedicated following, Dylan decided he wanted to focus on the ‘think global, act local’ mentality and created The One Campaign late last year. This focuses on changing one habit at a time with one plastic item that we can easily do without. When combined with Kim’s observations, Crucify the Cup was born.

Dylan says he grew up in an average Australian household and his family and friends weren’t ‘eco-warriors’, but he has been involved with the ocean and the environment in some form all of his life.

WHAT A WASTE

• Australia’s waste is growing at double the rate of our population, with 52 megatonnes generated a year.

• Australia is ranked 42nd in the world for coffee consumption at almost three kilos per person per year.

• We throw away one billion takeaway coffee cups nationally, each year.

• Australia is ranked fifth highest for generating the most municipal waste in the world.

• More than 25 Sunshine Coast cafes offer discounts when you BYO coffee cup.

• There are six plastic items the majority of us use every day without thinking twice – plastic bags, plastic toothbrushes, takeaway coffee cups, takeaway Chinese containers, plastic water bottles and plastic straws.

Growing up surfing, scuba diving and then working on boats, Dylan travelled extensively to more than 30 countries and established his own yacht delivery business in his late 20s.

“The combination of age, experience, and a change in mentality all brought it together for me. I didn’t have a lightning bolt moment that changed my perspective forever, it was a gradual change that made me realise I needed to do something about the global waste problem,” he says.

“I have seen some horribly dirty places in my travels and seen how bad pollution can get. I will never forget surfing in Sri Lanka, where I was literally paddling through floating plastic and had to jump over a bucket in the whitewash.”

Kim, who works at Unique Health Products at Kunda Park, says she began to be more environmentally active when she started working on boats in the Whitsundays.

“I would see guests’ water bottles, soft drink and beer cans being caught by the wind and being taken overboard into the ocean. When I then got involved in underwater clean-ups, I’d get the scuba gear on and clean around the jetties and moorings and see how much discarded rubbish and plastics there was in there and how much damage it was causing,” she says.

“It was devastating and so scary to see what the sea creatures had to endure and how they were impacted by having so much plastic around, eating it and getting entangled in it.”

Kim, who is 30, found a kindred spirit in Dylan and they work together on the many projects that Dylan brings to life.

While the lure of free coffee through the Crucify the Cup Campaign ensured The One Campaign got off to a roaring start, Dylan’s next most popular offering, the 3-Shot Tuesday newsletter, is also gathering an increasing following.

Dylan says the inspirational free weekly email provides encouragement for readers to incorporate habits, routines and tools that reduce consumption and waste into their lives through three succinct dot points each week. But it has become much more than that, spawning a support network of people who are all consciously trying to make small changes to their consumption habits each week.

“It communicates directly to readers that they’re not alone in their journey of reducing their impact on the world,” Dylan says. “It’s a soft reminder for them to keep on track and provides them with inspiration for new things to consider.”

Although looking at the enormity of the waste problem we are faced with can be daunting, Dylan says each individual has the power to make more of an impact than they might first think. “You vote when you buy,” he says. “Every time you buy a single-use cup, you are sending a message to the supplier that this has been used and they need to replenish it by making another one. So, if you continually buy takeaway coffee cups, you are voting for more to be made.

“If you look at it in this way, can one person make a difference? Absolutely. You already have a vote every time you spend your money, so it’s just a matter of changing the way that you cast it.”

To keep updated and find out how you can get a free coffee during the Crucify the Cup campaign, text ‘coffee’ to 0447 206 064 or send a message to https://goo.gl/14rTBy. You can also make a donation via gofundme.com/CrucifyTheCup.

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