Killarney used to accept it as a price of being a tourist town: ubiquitous disposable coffee cups spilling from bins, littering roads and blighting the area’s national park.

The County Kerry town went through about 23,000 cups a week – more than a million a year – adding up to 18.5 tonnes of waste.

Not any more. Three months ago, Killarney became the first town in Ireland to phase out single-use coffee cups. If you want a takeaway coffee from a cafe or hotel, you must bring your own cup or pay a €2 deposit for a reusable cup that is returned when the cup is given back.

  • ganove@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    The deposit system would be great to see for take away/ delivery food as well. Here in Germany we have it for coffee cups and bottles/ cans you buy from the supermarket. Works great and is really easy to adapt to, just the garbage from Take away food is still a pain in the ass.

    • bob_lemon@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, it would be pretty cool, especially since recycling isn’t even an option for Pizza boxes.

      Although I can imagine that a reusable pizza box is actually worse in terms of CO2. Production and cleaning might be worse over the projected lifetime than the current system.