Would you drink out of a 'boomerang' cup? Hastings cafe bans disposable cups

While many cafes will offer you a discount if you bring your own cup, one in Hawke's Bay has taken it a step further.

Cartel HQ on Market St in Hastings has stopped offering disposable cups.

As a result, the cafe is stopping between 150 to 200 cups going to landfill per day.

Owner Mell Anderson said she "just had enough" of the waste caused by single-use cups.

"We wanted to make it as easy as possible for everybody."

Tash May (left) and Mell Anderson (owner) from Cartel HQ, with new reusable and recyclable cup options. Photo / Laura Wiltshire

The cafe already sells Sup Cups, meaning people can buy a reusable cup onsite.

They have also set up a "CupCycling" system, where people can take a cup and return it.

Customers give a gold coin when they pick up their coffee, which is returned when they bring the cup back.

They also have boomerang cups for people in the surrounding offices to use.

"They can just come and grab them and they can bring them back."

For people who are just passing through Hastings and may not be able to bring a cup back, there are also options.

"We are currently working with Haumoana School, they are creating something called the Koha Jar Project."

The kids at the school have been creating insulators for glass jars, which are easily recyclable.

People can offer a koha to give to the school, when they take a jar.

"It's about raising awareness for the school, the kids, the parents and also finding another option for us."

They also have four wooden carry trays which people can take their coffee away in and return afterwards.

"Everyone has kind of come to us with a problem, and we want to have a solution," Anderson said.

She said it was like plastic bags in supermarkets, once the change was made, no one worried about it.

"I've noticed with people coming in they've been holding off and holding off and then today they've brought their own cup, they have just been waiting for the day."

Disposable cup free cafes are becoming more common in larger cities like Wellington and Auckland, and Anderson said it would be great to see Hawke's Bay catching up.

"I want us all to work together.

"If we don't make a change now we are just sitting on the sidelines while another 300 million coffee cups go into landfill."

She said her advice to other cafes would be to research options, find solutions and then take the plunge.

"It's about change of habit."

While Cartel HQ is understood to be the first cafe to completely ban disposable cups in Hawke's Bay, other cafes are already considering the move.

Head of Coffee at Eat, Drink, Share Hawke's Bay, Dayna Joblin , said the four cafes under the organisation's umbrella will be going disposable cup free at the start of next year.

She said they are already encouraging customers at Opera Kitchen in Hastings, Albion Canteen in Napier and F.G. Smith Eatery and The Picnic in Ahuriri, to bring keep cups, by asking customers ordering a take-away coffee if they have one.

"It's trying to pop it in their head that very shortly it's going to be what's going to be having to happen."

She said they were already doing a lot to reduce waste across the four cafes, and at Opera Kitchen and F.G. Smith they only use between 100 and 150 disposable cups per week.