A Small Change with a Big Impact – The Good Cup’s Mission for a Greener Future

Hi Chris, what is your role and background?

I am very proud to say my role is to introduce The Good Cup® to the UK, which is a mammoth task but so many people are making the switch, it really warms my heart.

Officially, I am the MD of No More Lids the official UK distributor for The Good Cup®.

Ever since my first job, I have worked at all levels of hospitality; from waiting tables, to managing and owning venues before stepping into supplying the industry. This means I have seen first hand the sheer volume of single use plastic waste generated each year within hospitality. I felt that there must be a way to make a difference. We launched The Good Cup® officially around 12 months ago.

Can you tell us a bit about The Good Cup? 

The mission is simple, to reduce the volume of single use plastic waste created by the hospitality industry and beyond. The cup itself is the brain child of an incredible packaging designer, Cyril Drouet, who was inspired to create the cup after a visit to Glastonbury and seeing the sea of waste left behind.

Using his years of experience Cyril worked tirelessly on creating prototype after prototype until he perfected the design and The Good Cup® was born.

Once I discovered the cup and found it was not yet launched in the UK, I dived right in to bring this game changing cup to the masses. We have already seen so many businesses make the switch and literally every day more people join the family and help us work towards reducing the tons of waste created every day from hot and cold drinks alone.

What impact can switching can have?

Making the switch has so many positive benefits! Normal cups and lids contain PE or PLA lining and usually have Plastic or PLA lids which take up to 140 years to decompose.

Right away we are taking those out of the waste streams! Now multiply that by the 16 million single use cups and lids used every day here in the UK and suddenly that one cup is having a huge impact.

The cup is certified 100% recyclable as paper (it’s as recyclable as printer paper!) and 100% home compostable and actually biodegrades in under 6 months leaving no trace or negative impact on our planet! The cups are sent to venues as one box of 1000 cups, which would usually be 2 boxes of 500 cups and a box of 1000 lids so reduces the carbon footprint too.

It’s the same cup for both hot and cold drinks taking away all those nasty clear plastic cups used too. It also takes us 35% less energy to produce the cup compared to other cups and lids. Every step of the way we have made sure we are doing things better for our planet.

How can consumers help support the initiative?

The most important thing they can do is try the cup! We naturally come across people who don’t like change, no matter the reason, and some are not willing to give the cup a try which is such a shame as the drinking experience is amazing with the contoured top fitting the mouth perfectly and not having the separate lid is a game changer. No risk of the lid popping off!

We find once people do try the cup, they really love it. Consumers don’t often even know their cups and lids can cause so much damage to our planet and sadly greenwashing means people think their cup and lid are compostable or recyclable but this often refers to costly industrial processes and only 2% is actually processed the correct way with the rest ending up in landfill or in our oceans.

So as well as trying the cup the key is for consumers to have and share the knowledge that the good cup is genuinely sustainable. With every sip they are having a positive impact for our planet.

Finally – tell everyone! Although it’s a small change, it is still a positive change and so the more people who find out about the cup the more effect we can have on reducing single use plastic waste.

How will you be partnering with The Cornish Seal Sanctuary?

We are so proud to be the cup used at the Cornish Seal sanctuary café, for not only hot drinks but for cold and even for those delicious fries too!

The Seal Sanctuary exists to make a difference to marine life and that is our reason for being; to make the world a better place and our oceans and water ways a safer place for our wildlife.

Partnering with the Cornish Seal Sanctuary is a dream come true for us.

Later this year we will be launching a campaign across the UK. For every box of The Good Cup® we sell, we will donate £5 to the Seal Sanctuary to help the incredible team continue the amazing life changing work they do, day in day out. We are also planning some exciting events at the sanctuary itself and can’t wait to tell you all about them.