Independent coffee chain Boston Tea Party is to mark the first anniversary of their ban on single use coffee cups by pledging to remove single use plastic milk bottles from 1st June.
A year ago, Boston Tea Party (BTP) banned the use of single use coffee cups, and is celebrating its first ‘Cuppaversary’ by making 1st June ‘National Making Things Better Day’.
From now on, each year on 1st June, BTP will pledge something more for the planet. This year, it is removing single use plastic milk bottles.
Boston Tea Party’s 22 cafes currently use 190,000 single use plastic milk bottles every year, and milk is one of BTP’s biggest annual costs at over £220,000.
“What a year it has been since we took the ground breaking decision to remove single use cups from our business,” said Sam Roberts, co-owner and CEO of BTP. “The reaction from our teams and customers has been frankly amazing.
“12 months on and the anti-plastic movement is really gathering some significant momentum. That said, nothing much has actually changed within the wider industry. Lots of noise and sticky plaster fixes, but very little concrete action.
“Businesses still seem happy to turn a blind eye to the waste product from their activities thereby outsourcing the cost and responsibility of the clean-up. Not cool.
“We’re on a continuous journey to try and make things better, and with this in mind we’ve decided to launch our very own ‘Making Things Better Day’ on the 1st June, forever.
“Each year we’ll be announcing a (for now) plastic based problem we’ll commit to resolve. This June we’re gunning for single use plastic milk bottles.
“By the end of this year we reckon we’ll have rid ourselves of them entirely. Good times. However we can’t afford to rest on our laurels and can’t fix this on our own, so please get involved.”
To remove single use plastic milk bottles, Boston Tea Party is working closely with its supplier to select the most sustainable solution.
It is avoiding glass for health and safety reasons, and over the next 6 weeks they are switching to pergals, which will save 6.5 bottles with each milk bag in box.
BTP will then be switch to a fully reusable, returnable solution with its dairy by the end of the year. BTP will be the first UK café chain to have done this.
