Reusable Cups during Covid-19

In this episode of Plastics Revolution, I chat again with Damien Clarke and Martin Brooks from Green Caffeen to get an update on their reusable coffee cup program during this Covid-19 crisis.

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In this show we talk about the safety of using their program, how its been impacted during this time, as well as how you can help out your favourite cafes by saving them money.

I hope you enjoy this episode of Plastics Revolution with the guys from Green Caffeen.

Credits

Hosted by Tammy Ven Dange
Produced by Jonny Puskas
Theme Music by Joseph McDade
All Rights Reserved 2020

Topics from this Episode:

• 0.00 | Intro
• 2.29 | Where is the business plan for what to do in a pandemic?
• 3.15 | Green Card certification process to keep people safe
• 7.52 | New cup made from Australian recycled plastic
• 9.28 | Canberra leading adoptions of the Green Caffeen reusable cup program
• 10.10 | You can grow your business during this crisis?
• 11.01 | Hint of more to come soon
• 11.57 | How to help your local cafes financially through the Green Caffeen Program

Quotes from Damien and Martin in this episode:

“Martin and I have continually referred to our business plan and tried to look up the pandemic episode. What do you do in a pandemic in your business plan? And we haven’t come across that page just yet. We’ve had to make it up as we go with everybody else.” – Damien

“We had cafes start banning reusable cups, the BYOB personal cups, but they all started seeing Green Caffeen as a really good, clean, safe, viable sort of system to offer a usuals to their customers. We saw… some of our peak number of cafe registrations in the two or three weeks when Covid first came out.” – Damien

“Basically, all we wanted to do was just reassure the customers that walked into a cafe that the Green Caffeen system was a safe and clean system to use.” – Martin

“Any cafe that has in-house dining options has a certain standard that they have to clean their dining, in-house dining utensils. And that can be anywhere from using a special type of cleaning liquid or getting a dishwasher over a certain temperature degree-wise. So, we just really wanted to push that these are not just getting rinsed under a cold water tap in the back of the shop. They are getting sanitised correctly to a standard that’s normally either set by the by a New South Wales Government or the state government or a local council.”  – Martin

“What we wanted to do was to work with our cafes to actually protect their workers. So, we set up some contactless handling and drop off points and some systems that ensured that the staff weren’t sort of touching the cup every day, every hour, every minute as one of these cups came in. That there was a collection point, and they could get themselves some gloves and their mask and put them straight into a dishwasher without actually having to touch the cups themselves.” – Damien

“Canberra’s now the epicentre of the Green Caffeen model at the moment across Australia. It’s just growing, it’s striving and it’s doing really, really well.” – Damien

“These cups are actually now made from recycled PET. So, they actually take a waste, turn it into a resource, which is the cup and a valuable reusable. And then those cups go around, arounda around, which actually eliminates waste.” – Damien

“All our materials are sourced locally here in Australia and manufactured here in Australia.” – Damien

“Some of our best cafes we have actually grown their numbers of users. So, they’ve actually grown their Green Caffeen active users in a period of time where people actually have said no to reusuables.” – Damien

“The average takeaway coffee drinker will consume $72 worth of packaging which a cafe has to pay for in 12 months. So, you can help your cafe by reducing that $72 worth the packaging by using a Green Caffeen cup, not only can you get in more profitable and back up on their feet quicker, but you can actually save the planet and reduce the impact on single use coffee cups at the same time.” – Damien

Links & Resources

• Sign up for Green Caffeen app: Apple App Store or Google Play
• Learn more about Green Caffeen on their website
• Find a participating café
• Follow Green Caffeen on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter