Refillable Cups

If you are heading to town, uni or work then a refillable cup/bottle should be added to your front door check list.

Keys, wallet, phone...cup.



Plastic bottles and coffee cups are particularly problematic. Only around half of the 35 million plastic bottles sold in Britain every day are currently collected for recycling. And every day around 7 million cardboard coffee cups are thrown away, but only 1 in 400 are recycled, leaving over 6.98 million going to landfill or ending up in the environment. (Parliament, 2017)

It's not as easy as just recommending putting coffee cups in recycling. The vast majority have a plastic lining to keep them water tight, this makes the recycling of them more complicated. However, dedicated recycling bins for cups are popping up.

Recycling isn't the fix all. If we can avoid the need for disposable cups and bottles in the first place that is far more beneficial to the environment.

Using a reusable coffee cup can also be good for the wallet...

As for reusable bottles, try to choose one that is plastic free, you can even get ones made of sugar cane now! A metal bottle will work great too and could last years.

Queen Margaret University is part of the Refil Campaign. Any where you see the logo below you are welcome to freely refill your water bottle with tap water from that establishment.

QMU has water refill stations located throughout the university:

• Level 1 by the coffee machine
• Level 0 by The 1875
• Sports Centre
• Maggies

Look out for national Refill Day in the Autumn