Why we don’t offer SUCs.
New Zealanders send about 300 Million SUCs, single use cups, to landfill every year. Let that number sink in for a moment.
We don’t want to add to the mountain of waste.
At Hub Matakana we do our best to live and operate by the simple principles: Care for the Earth and Care for the People.
These values influence the everyday decisions we make, from the fit out with mostly second hand furniture, the products we choose to use and sell in our café and shop, to how we garden, how we source ingredients, and what we do with the waste we inevitably produce.
My own awareness of waste began long before Hub Matakana. I grew up in Germany, where it is normal to separate glass by colour for recycling. Shortly after arriving in New Zealand in 1998, I took part in a two-week Permaculture Design Course with local permaculture legend Joe Polaischer. That experience deepened my understanding of cyclical thinking and the idea that there really is no such place as “away”.
When we throw something away, it always goes somewhere.
I think everyone should visit a landfill at least once. Seeing where our rubbish actually ends up changes the way you look at what you put in the bin and you realise that if everyone reduced the amount of waste they produced even just a little bit, it would add up to make a big difference.
Apart from the weeds growing through the pavers on our driveway because we refuse to use chemical sprays, one of the most visible decisions we have made at Hub Matakana to care for the earth, is not to offer single-use takeaway coffee cups.
As a gardener and composter I was aware of the greenwashing around so-called “compostable” coffee cups. Although words such as eco, bio and compostable can make us feel better about using them, most of these cups cannot simply be put into a home compost bin. They require specific commercial composting facilities and collection systems in order to break down as intended. In a home compost the outer paper layer eventually decomposes, but the plastic liner does not and because of this paper-plastic composition they can't be recycled either. The reality is that most single use cups end up in landfill.
During a visit to Wānaka, I saw that cafés there were not offering single-use cups at all and were instead all using the Again Again returnable cups, and I read that a similar initiative had taken place on Aotea Great Barrier Island where cafés have set up mug libraries and also use a lend cup scheme. It made me wonder: Could Matakana do the same? We decided to try. Perhaps one day other cafés in the area will follow and single use cups could be a thing of the past.
At Hub Matakana, customers who want a takeaway coffee have several alternatives. They can bring their own cup, or use one of our reusable lend cups: We have opted for sturdy borosilicate glass travel cups that can either be kept or returned to us for a full refund. For those who are just passing through we offer a $1 pre-loved mug option to take away and keep.
We also offer a range of beautiful handmade ceramic travel cups. There is something about drinking coffee from a proper cup that elevates the whole experience and it's a much healthier option too. Studies have found that the plastic liners in single use cups release tens of thousands of microplastics when filled with hot liquid, which is another good reason to avoid SUCs alltogether.
Whenever people ask for a take-away coffee, in addition to offering them the various options, we also invite them to instead stop for a moment, to sit down, take some time out, enjoy the coffee, the garden, a good book, a conversation, or simply take a few quiet minutes, rather than drinking on the run. Many do. Customers who choose to have their drink here, can enjoy it in hand crafted ceramics, made in Warkworth by Carly and Theo Leach of Leach Studio.
Our waste minimisation efforts don't stop with coffee cups.
We separate and either re-use or recycle almost everything we can, including soft plastics and Tetra Pak cartons, which we take to Less Waste, our local recycling collection point.
Our coffee grounds are composted and returned to our garden, where that compost helps us grow fresh herbs and greens that eventually find their way back into the café, into our garden teas and green smoothies.
We have also eliminated the stream of plastic milk bottles that would normally come with operating a café. Our organic milk arrives in reusable five litre pails, which are collected and exchanged each week.
All of these individual choices mean that the amount of rubbish Hub Matakana sends to landfill each week is remarkably small.
Sometimes people walk away when they realise that we don't offer single use cups, but for every customer we loose, I am convinced we gain two or three more who support us for the choices we make.
My hope is that one day the whole of Matakana and beyond will be single-use-cup-free and that either bringing your reusable cup or borrowing a cup for your daily coffee ritual will feel just as normal as taking reusable shopping bags to the supermarket is now. The idea of using a throw away cup just once for a few minutes will then probably be remembered as an odd habit from another time.
How Aotea ditched single use coffee cups. https://thespinoff.co.nz/kai/15-02-2024/how-aotea-ditched-single-use-coffee-cups
Microplastics and other harmful substances released from disposable paper cups into hot water. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33091697/