Reducing waste and boosting Sustainability: a coffee cup sharing solution for campus

Project status	mPOWER feature (Not applied)
Completed	Impact calculator for Re-use model

Project overview

• Sponsor: ME (Ministry of Environment), Republic of Korea

• Owner: SNU (Seoul National University) R&D Foundation

• Run by: SNU Disco Lab & Bottle Factory co.

• Period: June 2023 to Dec 2023, 7 months

• Goals

  • Design scenarios and test reusable cup sharing models for university campus

  • Research and analysis about hurdles & conditions of campus reusable cup models

  • Promote benefits of reusable cup culture for spreading out from universities

Project phases

1. Cases research for in Korea and global.

2. Survey, interviews and open forum event to collect opinions and ideas

3. Earning findings from a test run for further modelling updates

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Phase 1

Research cases

focus on...

• Mobile app, Operation process, Promotion, Impact measurement

• No deposit option and washing in campus

Learn more about YORCUP of University of York (UK)

“YORCUP” - a reusable cup “loan” scheme to reduce disposable cup usage across campus cafes. Teamed with the “Latte Levy” (a surcharge on disposable cup use) to raise money for sustainability projects, in under a year disposable cup usage dropped by ~24% (~90,000 disposables) and reusables increased 82%. The Levy has raised over £34,000 for on-campus and community sustainability projects. (https://www.sustainabilityexchange.ac.uk/green_gown_awards_2020_university_of_york_final)

Phase 2

Listening user voices & ideas

• Survey, interviews and open forum event

• 49.3% answered for using student ID card to borrow like library in the campus

• 42.4% wants to return to any cafes in the campus wherever they borrowed from

Open forum event was overnight party! See video.

If below link doesn't work then try this link instead please.

Phase 3

Test run for learning

• 2 weeks from 23rd Oct. with promotion. E.g., Free vegan cookies for participants

• Selective co-op cafes (3 stores) and 9 return baskets

• Utilise ReturnMe cups and Bottle Club mobile app by Bottle Factory

• Follow-up interviews for further analysis

Click the image to link for the campaign Instagram

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Impact calculation

High-level approach

• Use public LCI (Life Cycle Index) of single use cups to compare the ReturnMe reusable cup

  • Average carbon emissions of single use cups (0.0416 kg)

  • ReturnMe cups (0.152kg) + washing

• Currently, targeting to say "We can reduce xx of carbon emission using reusable cups rather single use"

• Challenges in detail

  • Single use cups LCI may not include end-of-life but manufacturing

  • Dish washing machines are highly depends on powers by fossil fuel

  • Other aspects may not included such as water uses, plastic-free, waste handling etc.

• Feedback

  • Not easy to draw a supply chain map including cut-offs for Life Cycle Assessment without professional team support

  • Peer review, reliable LCI are limited to access

ReturnMe Cup

ECOZEN T110 of SK Chemical used for bottle part and PE for lid. SK Chemical used GaBi ver.10.6.1.35 and shared its LCA summary. See page 4 of the doc (Korean lang.)

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How mPOWER can help?

Provide a review with LCA approach

• Draw a supply chain map for reusable cup model vs single use coffee cup

• Set a carbon emission formula for each countries LCI input

Supply mPOWER impacts calculator with the easiest user interface

• Multiple database applied

• Flexibilty and applicable to different scenarios with context sensitivity