Nottingham’s Giltbrook Retail Park has launched a coffee cup recycling initiative as part of The Cup Fund, a recycling grant funded by Starbucks and delivered by behavioural change charity Hubbub.

Giltbrook, which is one of 12 winners across the country to receive grants of between £50,000 and £100,000, has installed 10 coffee cup recycling bins across its premises. The retail park expects to recycle over 165,000 paper cups per year, with all cups recycled within the UK.

Giltbrook Retail Park has shown strong commitment to improving its recycling performance, having boosted its recycling rates from around 15 per cent to 65 per cent over the past eight months. The shopping centre recently won a 2019 Green Apple Award for environmental best practice and waste management in the retail sector.

Catherine Furlong, Centre Manager at Giltbrook, said: “We have been on an incredible journey in the last eight months at Giltbrook Shopping Park. We invested in new waste processing equipment at the end of last year and, together with our occupiers and waste management provider, have quadrupled our recycling levels. We’re very proud of our achievements and want to take this to the next level – and the funding from Hubbub will allow us to do this.

“We’ll be setting up a new waste stream that allows us to efficiently separate coffee cups and send them off for recycling. We will also be introducing new recycling bins across the shopping park so that our shoppers can recycle their waste while visiting us. We’re looking forward to getting these two initiatives going and improving our recycling even further.”

Gavin Ellis, Co-founder and Director of Hubbub, added: “Giltbrook has already demonstrated an impressive commitment to sustainability and we’re delighted to work with them to make the introduction of paper cup recycling a success. We know from our work on similar initiatives in other locations around the UK that the public are keen to do the right thing when it comes to recycling and the response to cup recycling in other locations has been very positive.

“The funding received from Starbucks to establish the Cup Fund has given us the unique opportunity to build on what we’ve learned and to invest in much-needed infrastructure in new locations. This is the first retail park to introduce these facilities and I’m sure that shoppers and those who work at Giltbrook will embrace the opportunity to recycle their cups.”

The Cup Fund

Launched in April 2019, The Cup Fund provides one year of grant funding to projects looking to improve coffee cup recycling. The initiative is financed by Starbucks’ five pence cup charge, which was rolled out across all Starbucks branches from July 2018.

Alongside Giltbrook Retail Park, winners of The Cup Fund include Bristol Waste Company, Camden Climate Change Alliance and the University of Northampton.

A spokesperson from Starbucks said: “Addressing the issue of waste in our stores is a global priority, and we are tackling this from a number of angles within our organisation – whether it’s reducing the amount of single-use materials we introduce to begin with, encouraging customers to adopt reusables or investing in an alternative cup solution that could transform the industry. Recognising the sector-wide issue, we are committed to supporting local councils and communities develop out-of-store paper cup recycling infrastructures, increasing the ease and availability of recycling for our customers.”

You can find more information on The Cup Fund’s website.