Chatime has finally given single-use takeaway cups a hard pass, instead stamping its seal of approval on the Swappa Cup “cup-borrowing” app. Outlets across campus are expected to roll it out soon.
Every day, an estimated 800,000 disposable cups are (you guessed it) disposed of. In an effort to stop students' caffeine and sugar addictions from creating ever-greater piles of landfill waste, the Uni and campus businesses have been rolling out the Swappa Cup app. They aim to push students to trade their single-use cups for multi-use ones instead.
Swappa Cup is a reusable-cup initiative which doesn’t require you to carry your own keepcup with you – participating shops will have a stock of reusable cups to “borrow”. Basically, you scan a QR code when you buy a drink with a Swappa Cup and scan again to return it when you’re done. You can drop it off up to 14 days after you buy your drink, with the shop taking care of cleaning and sterilising it again for the next go.
Bubble tea has been seen as one of the most stubborn holdouts to the reusable cup movement, as they rely heavily on single-use plastic cups to go through their machinery properly. However, since the start of Semester 2, the Chatime on campus has changed that. According to Violetta, who manages the campus’ favourite source of sugary, bubbly tea-based goodness, Chatime has committed to “NOT have any single use cups available [at the] uni store”. Instead, “customers will need to either bring their own cup, or use the Swappa Cup app.” Violetta told Critic Te Arohi that she is “excited about the change.”
The University has “made a commitment to become disposable cup free at the end of 2019,” with the hope that private campus businesses will follow suit. Other than Chatime, Cafe Albany uses the app, and plans are underway to introduce it to St David Café later this semester.
A University spokesperson said that they’d still prefer customers to bring their own mug or reusable coffee cup, with mug libraries also available for students to take advantage of across campus. However, they added that: “Swappa is there as a plan B and it does a great job of doing just that”.