On-street coffee cup recycling bins for Oxford

Oxford City Council and Oxford Direct Services will be working in partnership this December to install on-street coffee cup recycling bins in the city centre.

Using a grant from environmental charity Hubbub, the scheme will see ODS install dedicated on-street coffee cup recycling bins in high footfall areas: the city centre, Summertown high street and Headington high street. The programme aims to recycle 6.35 tonnes of coffee cups, roughly equivalent to 650,000 paper cups, in the first year.

Earlier this year, Hubbub partnered with Starbucks to launch The Cup Fund, a new grant fund that aims to kickstart paper cup recycling across the UK. At the moment, only 25 per cent of single-use coffee cups are recycled nationwide. The fund will support twelve projects, one of which is ODS’s successful bid for Oxford.

Tom Hayes, cabinet member for Zero Carbon Oxford, said: “Given the scale of the climate emergency, we’re thrilled to be working with Hubbub to stop single use coffee cups going into landfill every year. ODS should be commended for their efforts and innovative thinking to help us foster a clean and green Oxford.

“Oxford is proud to be introducing on-street coffee cup recycling, and we plan to make the most of this excellent opportunity by overhauling our high street litter bins, so that people can recycle more of their waste on-the-go.”