• Privacy policy
  • T&C’s
  • About Us
    • FAQ
  • Contact us
  • Guest Content
  • TLE
  • News
  • Politics
  • Opinion
    • Elevenses
  • Business
  • Food
  • Travel
  • Property
  • JOBS
  • All
    • All Entertainment
    • Film
    • Sport
    • Tech/Auto
    • Lifestyle
      • Horoscopes
    • Lottery Results
      • Lotto
      • Thunderball
      • Set For Life
      • EuroMillions
No Result
View All Result
The London Economic
SUPPORT THE LONDON ECONOMIC
NEWSLETTER
The London Economic
No Result
View All Result
Home Uncategorised

The big coffee cup scandal

First the car emissions testing scandal, now the big coffee cup lie. It’s very worrying when huge public facing companies such as Starbucks, Costa, Café Nero and other major food retailers are happy to hoodwink consumers into thinking they ‘do their bit’ for the environment, when all they’re really doing is paying lip-service in a […]

Ollie McAninch by Ollie McAninch
2016-07-28 15:38
in Uncategorised
FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmailWhatsapp

First the car emissions testing scandal, now the big coffee cup lie. It’s very worrying when huge public facing companies such as Starbucks, Costa, Café Nero and other major food retailers are happy to hoodwink consumers into thinking they ‘do their bit’ for the environment, when all they’re really doing is paying lip-service in a dark-arts PR exercise.

Nothing highlights the corporate trust issue more than the coffee cup scandal being highlighted by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on BBC One at 9pm tonight.

Every day hundreds of thousands of Britons put their coffee cup into a recycling bin. They’re wrong – those cups aren’t recyclable, and the UK throws away 2.5bn of them a year. What is worse is that they aren’t even made from recycled paper. They are a single use item that has a lifespan of the length of time it takes to drink a cup of coffee.  Although if you go to the websites of the big coffee brands, you’d be forgiven for thinking they’ve got sustainability completely covered.

The major coffee retailers are aware of this huge hoodwink, but they are currently reeling our their PR bods to defend the practice of stamping their cups with the recycling icon on the basis that the cups are technically recyclable (even though only two plants in the UK are capable of processing them, and a a tiny fraction of them ever make it to those plants).

Coffee cups are perhaps the ultimate emblem of the unsustainable and wasteful society we’ve created.  Corporations are so greedy that they tell outright lies to their customers, actively deceive us, or at the very least create illusions based on ambiguity. The marketing guys got together with the PR guys and probably said, ‘we can stamp this with a big green recycle logo because ‘technically’ these cups ‘could’ be recycled, even though nobody can recycle them. But that’s not our problem’.

When something so basic and fundamental is lied about, it leaves us unable to believe that anything we’re told.  The sorry truth is, even when issues like this are highlighted, no-one’s taking responsibility for it, least of all the big coffee retailers who have created this takeout trash mountain.  This, despite the fact that recycled and recyclable cups have actually been invented already.

A few months ago, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall highlighted the massive food waste issue caused by supermarket ‘cosmetic standards’ selectivity. Even though the website suspiciously crashed when the show aired, and every major supermarket promoted their ‘green’ credentials on the very same day, over 300,000 people signed the pledge to force the biggest supermarkets to tackle the massive food waste issue.  Even then, when the evidence showed how absurd the practice was, leading to mountains of ‘ugly’ vegetables making their way into landfill and putting farmers out of business, the supermarket PR bods came out in force claiming that ‘it’s what our customers want’.  Thankfully at least a little progress has been made with some retailers selling so called ‘ugly’ fruit and veg at a lower price in the supermarkets.

So, how can you put pressure on the coffee retailers to encourage them to deal with the waste pile they are creating?  You can tweet them right here!

[gdlr_button href=”https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Wake%20up%20%40StarbucksUK%20%40CostaCoffee%20%40CaffeNero_US%20and%20smell%20the%20waste.%20We%20want%20coffee%20cups%20that%20can%20actually%20be%20recycled%20NOW&hashtags=wastenot&url=www.wastenotuk.com&original_referer=” target=”_self” size=”medium” background=”#0099FF” color=”#ffffff”]Tweet your coffee cup anger![/gdlr_button]

Hugh’s War on Waste: The Battle Continues can be seen on Thursday 28th July, 9pm BBC One

RelatedPosts

The North American Income Trust – Reasons to be cheerful

Ecofin Global Utilities and Infrastructure – Staying nimble

On the Job Safety – 3 Considerations when setting up a Public Construction Site

Film Review: The House With A Clock In Its Walls

Tags: featured
Previous Post

Beer of the Week – Goose Island Beer Company’s Goose IPA

Next Post

Top 5 Burger Chains In London That Aren’t Byron

Subscribe to our Newsletter

View our  Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions

More from TLE

Gordon Brown: States that profited from oil surge should pay global windfall

Major Chinese Bubble Tea brand opens on Shaftesbury Avenue

Laurence Fox apologises to Ava Evans for ‘demeaning’ her

Russell Brand pleads with fans to support him financially after YouTube cuts revenue

Dan Wootton suspended from GB News after Laurence Fox’s on-air remarks

Sunak ‘committed to levelling up’ despite preparing to ditch HS2 to North

Steve Coogan and Carol Vorderman back Lib Dem calls for electoral reform

Is Suella Braverman in contempt of court over murder case comments?

One in ten prisons should close down, says watchdog

Peter Kay planning Phoenix Nights Christmas special and movie

JOBS

FIND MORE JOBS

About Us

TheLondonEconomic.com – Open, accessible and accountable news, sport, culture and lifestyle.

Read more

SUPPORT

We do not charge or put articles behind a paywall. If you can, please show your appreciation for our free content by donating whatever you think is fair to help keep TLE growing and support real, independent, investigative journalism.

DONATE & SUPPORT

Contact

Editorial enquiries, please contact: [email protected]

Commercial enquiries, please contact: [email protected]

Address

The London Economic Newspaper Limited t/a TLE
Company number 09221879
International House,
24 Holborn Viaduct,
London EC1A 2BN,
United Kingdom

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.




No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Food
  • Travel
  • JOBS
  • More…
    • Elevenses
    • Opinion
    • Property
    • Tech & Auto
  • About Us
    • Privacy policy
  • Contact us

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.




← Beer of the Week – Goose Island Beer Company’s Goose IPA ← Top 5 Burger Chains In London That Aren’t Byron
-->