Kerrod Trott 
An innovative partnership between the University of Sydney and Australia’s largest swap-and-go reusable coffee cup network, Green Caffeen, will help divert more than 35,000 single-use coffee cups from landfill every week.
The University of Sydney is the first university in NSW, and the third nationwide, to join the fight against single-use coffee cups with Green Caffeen. Green Caffeen is built around the principles of the circular economy and convenience.
The takeaway coffee cup loan program will enable staff and students to ‘check out’ a reusable cup via the Green Caffeen app. Cups can be returned to any participating cafe on campus or any participating cafe within Australia.
Nicole Marchhart, the University’s Energy and Waste Manager, said the partnership with Green Caffeen reflected the University’s deep commitment to sustainability and was another step towards its goal of sending zero waste to landfill by 2030.
Nicole says: “We’re working hard to make our campuses more sustainable and resilient, with initiatives from on-site composting to rooftop solar panels on our buildings,” said Ms Marchhart. “By switching to a system that makes it easier for everyone in our community to move away from single-use coffee cups, we’re making great progress in our mission to reduce, reuse and recycle waste on our campuses.”
The University of Sydney Union is the primary provider of coffee on campus. The USU’s Food and Beverage Operations Manager Ben Pinney said the union had an obligation to reduce single use.
“Every day during semester, we sell in excess of 5,000 coffees so we recognise the need to adopt and encourage our members to choose reusables when visiting our cafes.”
Green Caffeen Co-founder Damien Clarke said he was confident the University would find changing their takeaway coffee habits much easier with the swap-and-go system in place.
“It’s notoriously difficult for people to remember their reusable cup every time they want a takeaway coffee. That’s why we designed Green Caffeen to be a complete no-brainer. It’s like a library service. You check a cup out and check it back in again later. It’s free, and you can have two cups out at once, so it doesn’t matter if you forget your cup; you’ve got another in the cloud.There is no need to worry or be embarrassed about returning dirty cups as these go straight into the cafe’s contactless ‘drop zone’ container.”
Green Caffeen is already in over 700 cafes around Australia and will launch campus wide at the University of Sydney on the 16th February, 2022 during Welcome Week.
Cafes across campus can register to join for free at https://greencaffeen.com.au/cafe-join/
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