Would you spend 10 pence to save the Earth?

So would you? Coffee, tea, hot chocolate and soft drinks are all served up to us in cheerfully coloured and helpfully specially treated cups that keep the drink warm and our hands suitably comfortable; but the cost to planet Earth is huge. Worldwide numerous campaigns are, if you pardon the pun, heating up the cause. The problem is essentially how do we deal with the mountains of wasted cups that cannot be recycled because of their special lining that is, currently, too expensive to recycle? The result, millions upon millions of paper/plastic cups are dumped into huge holes in the ground and buried for all eternity in the hope that out of sight and out of mind they will decompose and be naturally recycled by nature. Essentially they will do, but not in any human timeframe…it will take in excess of three hundred years for some of these products to fully rot away.

In recent years there has been a call from across the political spectrum in the United Kingdom to address this issue. Riding on the back of the success of the 10p plastic bag charge introduced into supermarkets there is now growing pressure to enforce a similar charge on the use of disposable plastic and paper cups used in coffee chains. Obviously the leading high street coffee brand names are resisting the charge but will they eventually come onboard voluntarily or will government legislation force their hands?

At UKVending we have taken the steps towards reducing our own impact on the planet. All the cups we use in our vending machines are manufactured with a corn starch lining that is FULLY degradable yet still provides great insulating properties both for the drink and customer hands. We have introduced a range of funky and colourful KeepCups ™ that as the name implies you buy and keep and reuse with your favourite drinks. These cups are also made from recycled materials and so, again, are wonderful for helping the planet.

We have also joined with the Rainforest Alliance and Hugh Fearnley Whittingsall’s campaigns to reduce waste, to reuse and recycle and to use only ethically grown coffee beans, cocoa and teas in our range of products. We at UKVending would like you to find out more about our range of environmentally conscious products by logging onto our website at http://www.ukvending.co.uk.