Infrastructure vs Innovation: Lifting the lid on the sustainability gap in speciality coffee
Updated: 6 days ago
Down Under: extracting the science and solutions around the industry’s waste crisis ahead of ‘No Disposable Cup Day’.
You’ve just ordered a flat white to go from your local coffee shop. You feel good. You’ve avoided the big chain corporations and gone for the independent, slightly pricier option. You’ve waited on the unusually skinny bench underneath futuristic lighting, beside a shelf that’s carefully lined with individual bags of coffee showcasing washed co-ferments and anaerobic naturals. Higher up, ceramics to buy. A few feet away, your usual barista is immersed in pouring a swan design into your espresso; with oat milk-of course. Impressive. You take it to go and look for a recycling bin on your way to work. But wait, this cup says it’s ‘compostable’...that's even better?!
As a barista myself, following ‘No Disposable Cup Day’ on the 4th October, I spoke to business owners and scientists to break down how we can reduce waste in the industry and move to a more sustainable future. From ‘eco’ alternatives to ditching the disposables altogether, how is the industry responding to the continuing rise and therefore environmental impact of speciality coffee culture?
Up to 500 billion single-use coffee cups are discarded globally every year, with roughly 20 billion entering the environment through littering alone.
According to the Speciality Coffee Association (SCA), “Speciality coffee is a coffee or coffee experience recognised for its distinctive attributes, and because of those attributes, has significant extra value in the marketplace.”
Speciality coffee means quality, care and an excellent experience. An industry built on the culture of slowing down now increasingly conflicts with a society that keeps speeding up.
We must make sure we aren't stopping at the final hurdle, but finishing the race with as little environmental footprint as possible. Do microplastics (even if they’re plant-derived) in your espresso equal speciality to you?
‘No Disposable Cup Day’ challenges us to think about how we can ditch disposables altogether. The day was set up to raise awareness and bring communities together in a shared responsibility for the environmental impact of disposable cups.
As we are set to go beyond the 1.5°C global warming limit, the UNEP reminds us that ‘countries with greater responsibility for climate change should act the fastest with the greatest ambition’.
Filtering the truth
But what if the rise of plant-derived compostable coffee cups in replacement of single-use plastics doesn’t hold the golden key to environmental bliss? It may be more complicated than it seems. So grab a brew, as the science is coming in hot...
Australia (along with New Zealand) has fundamentally reshaped the speciality coffee experience, including third-wave pioneers here in the UK, by fuelling the globalisation of the Flat White.
But now, hard-hitting research from the University of Queensland has found that the ‘eco’ alternative lining in commercially compostable cups actually breaks down into your coffee a shocking 12 times faster than its fossil-derived counterpart.
“PLA should not automatically be considered harmless”, explained Elvis Okoffo, leader of the study.
His research grew from investigating human exposure to micro- and nano-plastics in different products. He explained how polylactic acid (PLA) is commonly marketed as the more environmentally friendly alternative, but behaves differently from conventional polyethylene.
Terms such as ‘plant-based’ or biodegradable’ can lead consumers to assume that a product is plastic-free or will readily break down in the natural environment.
“It may persist when the specific conditions required for effective biodegradation are absent”.
PLA products often require controlled industrial conditions. Over weeks and months they must be sustained at high temperatures, controlled moisture levels and with mechanical agitation.
This means they are actually unable to degrade naturally in soil, waterways, home composting systems or landfill.
So, for the most part, compostable doesn’t mean your home food bin. The ‘compostable’ label without the specifying term ‘home’, which can be seen on most disposable coffee cups, means it must be broken down industrially.
“The compostable label on its own is close to meaningless”, said Lea Maguero, Global Head of Sustainability at BioPak.
The team at the B Corp brand, a leading player in the distribution of plant-based packaging, are actively fighting for compostable packaging to be properly recognised within Extended Producer Responsibility schemes (EPRs) to support a proper disposal system. Essentially, this means making it the businesses’ responsibility for where their product ends up.
“Material is only half the question. The other half is infrastructure, and that half isn't ours alone to solve”.
Founded 20 years ago, BioPak are also creators of Compost Connect, an education platform established in 2021, ehich helps to connect foodservice businesses to commercial composters for proper end-of-life disposal. They’re based across Australia and New Zealand, with hotspots in London and Birmingham in the UK.
Lea shared how for BioPak the question is increasingly around the systems that support the material. Where the infrastructure for proper disposal isn’t in place to support a purchasing decision, it lets consumers down.
Elvis agrees: “Companies should consider the entire lifecycle of a product”.
As consumers, we are therefore unknowingly or helplessly contributing to landfill, often contradicting our choice of the independent coffee joint over the big dogs.
The cost of change
Over her eight years with the company, Lea has seen a shift in how sustainability in the industry has become more about keeping up with regulations than a focus on materials and ambition.
In the UK, the Plastic Packaging Tax and the new extended producer responsibility fees put a direct price on choice of material; in contrast to Australia’s single-use plastic bans setting the pace.
“Cost almost always sets the boundary, and sustainability decides what happens with it”.
Data from Ellipsis Earth shows us that coffee-cup litter is fundamentally a prevention and infrastructure problem, and once it’s on the ground, dirty and mixed with other waste, the economics of recovery are terrible.
Most customers come in search of a sustainable option, but it’s down to where their margins fall, explained Lea. “They'll have a genuinely good story to tell, and my job is often to ask what we can actually substantiate”, Lea added.
So with the marketing team they are always working out where the line is between a compelling claim and one that’s fully defensible.
Through media engagement, public outreach and discussions with industry and policymakers, Elvis hopes the findings of his study will help consumers and manufacturers look beyond environmental marketing claims and consider how safe the product really is.
This is something BioPak is actively open about in the belief that transparency will help maintain trust for years to come. They hold back from certain labelling where the evidence doesn’t support it, and where a lower-impact alternative performs as well, they transition.
“Avoiding greenwashing isn't something you solve once - it's a conversation you keep having”, she added.
Extracting a solution
Being a responsible consumer can be confusing. Well-respected brands flood independent coffee shops, with natural colours and ‘made of plants’ marketing that can’t simply return to the soil in the way we may assume.
Furthermore, a takeaway cup is invariably made up of two parts, and littering data from Ellipsis Earth reveals how lids often outnumber cup bodies in the environment due to being more easily blown away or discarded.
Cyril Drouet, founder of Choose Planet A, also based in Australia, knows this. Inspired to find a more sustainable solution after observing the amount of waste created at a music festival he visited 15 years ago, he launched The Good Cup.
“The planet is the most important thing to humans as there is no planet B”, he reminds us.
While some companies argue that a water-based lining on hot drinks is insufficient to maintain cup structure, Drouet is doing it anyway. As a result, the cup can go in your home paper or compost bin without the hassle of figuring out where to take it. In addition, he states that the patented all-in-one origami design means a 30% reduction in storage space, transportation volume and carbon footprint, making it a potentially game-changing solution, “helping to alleviate the environmental crisis by removing plastic, one lid at a time”.
As the speciality coffee market has boomed globally, it’s more important than ever to be inspired by the businesses that think beyond the bean; who look at the impact beyond the transaction.
BioPak also supplies reusable cup brand Huskee. Lea believes in a policy that supports a return and washing system in the UK, where a business makes reusables the standard rather than the virtuous option. But she believes the switch “won’t happen on goodwill alone - it needs regulation designed to support it”.
Looking ahead to those pioneering new solutions in Australia, allows us to see how their systems are adapting to the environmental impacts that we are ignoring. What if there was a system that could span across cities and counties and unite us in wasting less?
Founder of Good Reusables, Jonas Benedikt, has built a nationwide reuse system across Australia.
During his 15 years in the coffee industry, he realised how many disposable cups you can really go through; ordered by the pallet and in the bin eight minutes later. I understood. As a barista working in speciality coffee shops across the UK; I also witnessed this week on week, year on year, feeling helpless to an industry out of time.
“After a while you stop seeing it, because everyone around you has stopped seeing it too”, he said.
Inspired by the growing success of Germany’s system ‘ReCup’, Jonas observed how perfectly a reusable cup system could work.
With 150+ café partners nationally, Good Reusables help keep over two million cups a year out of landfill.
The cups, made in Melbourne, are built to last for around 500 wash cycles. When they reach their end of life, they return to Melbourne and are recycled into new products through a closed-loop system.
They are made of polypropylene, without BPA, PFAS or phthalates.
But why still plastic? The team had looked hard at the alternatives. Glass and ceramic easily break, and stainless steel is costly, stumping circulation. While Jonas doesn’t claim the company has a zero impact, he states it’s a fraction of the impact of the “extract>make>ship>bin” single-use system.
“Cafés are paying a premium to feel better about a bin”, he added.
Economically, it seems to do pretty well for the businesses too. He shared how one café on the south coast is saving around forty thousand dollars and two hundred thousand cups a year.
But the design matters.“You’re asking a stressed business owner to change a workflow, and that's a big ask no matter how good the maths is”, he said.
But rushing to channel the system all across the world isn’t the plan for Jonas. Instead, it’s to go deep into specific cities, as he believes that in a convenience culture, “a deposit-return system lives or dies on density”.
It’s an interesting take. This business seems to be built on balance; creating a desirable system for ditching disposables seems to demand the material industries often work to move away from.
So what if there was a way to reduce waste one step further? One unique coffee shop and roastery in Australia has done just this, completely phasing out disposable cups altogether, with a unique twist.
Mark Clatworthy is founder of Ocean Grind. When they started out in 2013, compostable cups were the standard. But years on, they realised they weren't the solution they first thought they were. So they encouraged customers to bring their own cups through offering discounts or a chance to win a surfboard. But even 60% of customers switching to reusables wasn’t enough.
For Mark, starting Ocean Grind came with the responsibility of the waste produced. So they made a change, with customers adapting faster than they expected.
“We’re all lucky enough to enjoy the ocean, so we should all look after it”.
So in 2019, they ditched disposables and began a second-hand mug library scheme, with the support of the surrounding community. Locals even help out; refilling the library when mugs run low. It comes as an addition to the option of bringing your own cup or taking part in the Huskee Swap and Go system.
The change gained a positive response and even attracted new customers. It is certainly a hub of community spirit with a shared care for the ocean. “It’s something we’re really proud of”, Mark added.
Since then, they’ve avoided the use of around 250,000 single-use cups, equivalent to around 20 tonnes of CO2 emissions. Mark reminds us that “It's just about doing the little things whenever possible, because it all adds up”.
Ocean Grind, based in Victoria, has always been about “great coffee, a love for the coast, and caring about the natural environment”. Having grown up surfing by the beach, he’s always had a pretty strong connection to the ocean and a huge appreciation for “everything it gives us”.
It’s clear we’re becoming more and more conscious of the impact of a takeaway coffee cup. With insufficient infrastructure and misleading marketing, it can be hard to do the right thing. But the industry is starting to react. Turning ‘No Disposable Cup Day’ into ‘Everyday’ right away may be a pipe dream, but as Mark says, “people adapt [...] and if your coffee is good enough, they’ll remember to bring their cup”.
This is just a taste of how industries are balancing infrastructure with new ideas as regulations evolve and new systems circulate.
Grinding down the science, stories and solutions is only the beginning. To truly reflect the ethos behind what coffee means to be speciality is to continue to experiment and adapt in a way that is palatable for the planet until the very last drop.
Useful links:
University of Queensland study:
UNEP report:
BioPak:
Ocean Grind:
Good Reusables:
Choose Planet A:
SCA:
Compost Connect:
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