Refillable Cups

Reduce Reuse Refill Campaign

Goals:

educate public about disposable cups: in our recycling community all cups are trash, none are currently recyclable
promote use of refillable mugs to reduce cups in waste stream

Methods

Newspaper ads: “cups are trash” ad ran weekly from last week of April through first week of June
Newspaper article: notified the campus newspaper about our campaign and Earth Day activities and they did a story on us
Local News: contacted local news groups and we were interviewed as part of an ongoing series on waste reduction and recycling and aired on 6 and 11pm news.
T-shirts: designed and handed out t-shirts with messages “go refillable” and “cups are trash”
Tabling during Earth Day: Had visual aids to show cup trash and handed out refill mugs
Person to person: Walked up to students w/ disposable coffee cups and “traded” them a refill mug for their disposable cup while discussing benefits of refillables
Fact Sheet: wrote up an editorial/fact list on disposables that was distributed to members of campus community

Materials:

Cup pyramid: about 365 cups (384) glued together in a pyramid with a 10x10 base up to a 2x2 top, then topped off with a refill mug
Cup pile: used coffee cups, pulled from trash, piled in a high traffic area to create a visual disturbance
T-shirt: “Go Refillable” and a refill mug with University of Oregon Campus Recycling logo in refill mug on front, disposable coffee cup with international “no” symbol through it with “not recyclable” on top of “no” symbol. “reduce reuse refill” at bottom of shirt
Refill mugs: we handed out plastic 20 oz mugs, 16 oz mugs, 16 oz tumblers (no handles), and double wall steel screw top mugs. Each type had some sort of recycling logo and made mention of our program
Mascot: We have tree costumes, the Recycle Trees will go out and “catch people green handed” by rewarding students who are caught in the act of recycling or using a refill mug. We also used the Trees to “trade” students’ disposable cups for refill mugs
Surveys: Useful to figure out what needs to be done to encourage refill use

Possible Partners

The on campus recycling program: UO Campus Recycling started this campaign; however if you are somebody that wants to bring “Reduce Reuse Refill” to your campus contact your campus recyclers.
Campus Food Service: We partnered with our student union’s food service manager. He offers discounts for refill mug use in all of his on campus stores. He also sought funding from the campus coffee and soda providers, both Pepsi and Allann Brothers donated $1000 for the purchase of refill mugs
Student Government: We worked closely with the environmental coordinator to help plan Earth Week events on campus
Student body: we worked with some students from the school of business to assemble and distribute a survey on student refillable usage
Campus Housing: In the past, our Housing department has given every new resident on campus a refillable mug at the beginning of the school year