Refill Return Cup has saved 8,000 single-use cups in four months.
But can it overcome convenience and change habits?
Despite efforts to cut coffee cup waste in Cardiff, some café owners say the Refill Return Cup scheme is struggling. Four months after its launch, participation remains low, and customers still favour disposable cups over reusables.
“The system is there, but people aren’t engaging with it the way we hoped,” says Chris, manager at Green Shoots Coffee, one of the businesses participating in the scheme. “There was a spike in use when they ran a free coffee giveaway, but since then, it’s dropped off significantly.”
The initiative, backed by FOR Cardiff, has already prevented 8,000 single-use cups from going to landfill. But in a city where thousands of takeaway coffees are sold daily, it’s clear that many customers haven’t made the switch.
Green Shoots Coffee has been on board since the scheme’s launch, yet Chris and his team have noticed a pattern of reluctance.
“The biggest issue is convenience,” he says. “People don’t want to download an app just to get a coffee. When they’re in a rush, they’ll always go for the fastest option—usually a disposable cup.”
For Gwen, a front-of-house employee at Green Shoots Coffee, customer habits are difficult to change. “Even the ones who show interest often forget to bring the cup back or just never try it at all,” he says.
Consumer behaviour plays a crucial role in sustainability initiatives. Experts have looked into the consumers behaviour and how that plays a crucial role in success or failure of sustainability initiatives.
In their book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein suggest that financial incentives or penalties have a substantial influence on whether people adopt sustainable habits and without them, convenience tends to prevail.
A study in the Journal of Marketing by Kelly White, Rashid Habib, and David Hardisty found that economic motivation is key to shifting consumer behaviour. People may support sustainability in theory, but in practice, they default to the easiest option.
Green Shoots Coffee has had success with KeepCups, increasing their use from 3% to 43% over three years—but only because they offer a discount to customers who bring one.
“We’ve proven that financial incentives work,” Chris says. “People love a discount. But if there’s no reward for using the Refill Return Cup, why would they bother?”
For businesses, the scheme presents both opportunities and challenges. The cups themselves are provided by the initiative and cleaning them hasn’t been a major cost.
But if usage increased dramatically, handling and storing large numbers of reusable cups could become a logistical issue.
“We can manage the current level of returns, but if we were doing this at scale, it would add more pressure,” Chris says. “It’s manageable now, but long-term? I’m not sure.”
Other challenges come from the limited number of participating cafés. Since not all coffee shops in Cardiff are part of the scheme, customers may not always have a convenient place to return their cups.
“Unless the entire city gets behind it, people won’t take it seriously,” Chris says. “If every single café was on board and single-use cups were phased out, we’d see real change.”
In other cities, governments have taken more aggressive steps. Berlin and London have debated mandatory reusable cup systems, while Germany and Sweden already operate successful deposit-return schemes.
In these systems, customers pay a small deposit when they take a reusable cup and get it back when they return it. This financial model has been proven to increase participation and encourage sustainable habits.
Some UK cities have also started charging extra for disposable cups, a tactic known as “nudge economics”, where customers are subtly guided toward the better choice. Research shows that adding a small penalty for unsustainable behaviour can be just as effective as offering a reward.
Green Shoots Coffee hasn’t ruled out going further, but Chris is realistic. “We could ban disposables in our shop, but unless the entire industry moves in the same direction, we’d just lose customers to the café next door.”
Despite the challenges, environmental groups argue that small changes do add up over time. George Clark, Head of City to Sea, believes Cardiff’s scheme is still an important step forward.
“If we want real change, it starts with small, everyday actions,” Clark says. “Schemes like this show that it’s possible to reduce waste—we just need people to engage with them.”
FOR Cardiff, the scheme’s organizer, acknowledges that refinements may be necessary. Could the system be simplified? Could a deposit model encourage better participation?
Chris remains uncertain about the scheme’s future but acknowledges that change takes time.
“I’d love to see more people using it,” Chris says. “It’s a great idea, and habits take time to change. But the more we talk about it, the more normal it will become.”