Bio Company: Put a stop to one-way cups

Disposable coffee cups are creating mountains of waste across the whole of Germany. Some companies in Berlin intend to tackle the problem and this has resulted in the environmental protection and  consumer organisation Deutsche Umwelthilfe recently giving awards to 15 cafés that sell their coffee to go in reusable cups with a deposit.

Three other companies in the capital, that include Bio Company, are pursuing a similar strategy. With the campaign “Mein Becher für Berlin” - My Cup for Berlin, they have since the summer been offering a reusable cup that has been sustainably produced and is fully biodegradable. You don't pay a deposit – it costs nine euros and is available not only in branches of Bio Company but also at all the outlets of Berlin's urban railway and the organic markets organised by Marktzeit. If you use the cups you get a rebate of 20 cents on speciality coffees in the organic supermarkets and 10 cents at Marktzeit. The partners say they don't earn anything from the sale of the cups.

The campaign is bearing fruit: by the end of October more than 2,600 cups were sold. The companies donated some of the revenue to the Berlin plant-a-tree campaign and with the money ten trees have so far been planted in the capital. The first one is already growing in the Charlottenburg district.