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No keep-cup, no coffee - Dublin café to ban single-use coffee cups

A café in Dublin City Centre will only serve take-away coffee in keep-cups from next year. Bread...
Michael Staines
Michael Staines

15.35 27 Nov 2019


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No keep-cup, no coffee - Dubli...

No keep-cup, no coffee - Dublin café to ban single-use coffee cups

Michael Staines
Michael Staines

15.35 27 Nov 2019


Share this article


A café in Dublin City Centre will only serve take-away coffee in keep-cups from next year.

Bread 41 on Pearse Street said it wants to get behind the movement against plastic waste.

The café is already trialling the ban on single-use cups on Mondays – and has pledged to being it in full time in the New Year.

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Owner Eoin Cluskey said the policy has gotten a mixed reaction so far.

“I have a fabulous email I got that says: ‘No WiFi, no cups, no business from me,’” he said.

“I had a lady yesterday who never been in before and she said she specifically came all the way across town to get a coffee.

“She said I should ban the cups tomorrow.”

He said the full-time ban will be in place from February – but people who don’t own a keep-cup won’t be turned away.

“We are introducing a scheme where we will have our cups and you can put a deposit down and take a cup with you,” he said.

“We are not trying to discourage people away from it. We are just trying to be part of a solution to a massive problem.

“We are all aware of waste. This is a waste movement that I am going to be behind.”

Earlier this year a Government-funded study found that up to 200 million coffee cups are thrown away in Ireland every year.

The Recycling List Ireland study found that 528,000 are thrown away each day – which works out at just over 366 a minute.

The group warned that the cups cannot be recycled in Ireland and have to be disposed of in general waste.

Some companies and cafés offer compostable cups which can be disposed of in the brown compost bin.

Even these do not break down naturally – and can only be processed in a commercial compost facility.

With reporting from Emma Tyrrell


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