Galway City Council and 2GoCup are launching a major new environmental campaign to dramatically reduce single use coffee cups in Galway city.
For a three-month trial period, nine cafés will not sell any drinks in single use cups and instead sell drinks exclusively in reusable 2GoCups.
In return, they will each receive a total of 1,400 cups free from Galway City Council and 2GoCup.
A customer will pay €1 to ‘borrow’ the deposit scheme cup and get it refunded when they return it or alternatively swap it for another 2GoCup for free at any of the participating businesses.
The cafés taking part in the trial are Mocha Beans, Salthill; Mocha Beans, Cross Street; Mocha Beans, Newcastle Road; Temple Café, St Augustine Street; The Creamery, Salthill; Rouge, Dominic Street; Ces’t la Vie, Terryland; Anton’s, Fr. Griffin Road; Greens & Co, Henry Street.
Speaking about the campaign, Tiarnan McCusker, Environmental Awareness Officer with Galway City Council, said every year in Ireland we dispose of 200 million coffee cups – a whopping 560,000 each day going to landfill or incineration.
“There are huge environmental consequences with this in terms of litter, waste and climate,” he said.
“Nine cafés in the City are leading the way in bringing about a local circular economy with coffee cups and are only selling drinks from the deposit scheme 2GoCups.
“This is the first time that it has been trialled on such a scale in an Irish City and we are looking forward to sharing our findings with other cafés and indeed other Local Authorities.’’
In addition, many cafés in the City have signed up to ‘Use your Mug!’ and are offering a 50 Cents discount to customers who bring in their own reusable mugs from the 8-15th April.
From a recent survey completed by Galway City Council, four out of five respondents have a reusable cup but only one out of five use them regularly. A large green coffee cup called ‘Muggins’ will also be placed in various locations around the City.
Locals and tourists alike are being encouraged to take a selfie with Muggins and post it to Galway City Council’s social media accounts using the #useyourmug.
