Every minute, Vancouver throws out an average of 258 disposable cups amounting to over 130 million cups annually. Emissions from landfills likewise account for 20% of Canada’s national methane emissions—approximately 19Mt of CO2e. On a macro level, we believe the disposable cup issue is a symptom of our throwaway culture that values personal convenience at the expense of negative social and environmental externalities—caused by a fundamental disconnect between people and the natural ecosystem that supports our livelihoods. Current solutions to mitigate disposable cup waste include recycling, using compostable cups, and implementing cup surcharges. However, while these solutions are important, they fail to tackle the root cause of society’s throwaway mindset. We believe there is a gap and an opportunity to change the social norm, and we want to bridge this gap by advocating for an alternative to disposable convenience.

One solution we believe is not being leveraged enough is encouraging consumers to bring their own cups to buy to-go drinks. Current incentives—such as small in-store discounts and cup surcharges—are minimal and struggle to bridge the connection between consumer action and the larger scope of the waste issue. From our interviews with over 70 cafe owners and customers in Metro Vancouver, we discovered that cafes can act as important places to facilitate education around sustainability. On the customer end, we discovered that bring-your-own-cup habits are embraced, but not institutionalized enough in a way that incentivizes it.

Urban cores around the world have seen a surge in disposable waste, from PPE to takeout packaging, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A majority of our interviewees have expressed the concern that the pandemic has made throwaway culture more difficult to avoid. Clearly there is a need and desire for waste solutions in the midst of a pandemic. Our “new normal” calls for innovation to tackle the disposable waste issue.

BYO’s Solution

Our project—BYO—is a mobile app-based program that motivates individuals to bring their own cup through a variety of mechanisms such as rewards and impact tracking. On top of incentivizing bring-your-own-cup behavior, a portion of the usual cup discount will be allocated towards a tree planting initiative. By incorporating tree planting, we seek to extend our impact beyond cup waste—encouraging customers and cafes alike to think bigger while sparking conversations around the larger collective role of consumer practices. The project is a unique combination of cup waste reduction, rewards, tree planting, and community building.

We made significant progress in Fall 2020

We made significant progress in Fall 2020. The conversations we have had with local cafes and customers guided the design of the BYO program. During this semester, we have also started on the app development side. In collaboration with students from SFU Surge, a student club that provides hands-on learning opportunities in tech, we created our first mockups and learned a lot about the mobile app development process. Based on that experience, we began planning our recruitment process to bring on senior computer science and design students to create the first working iteration of the app.

We look forward to furthering our program and launching the pilot one day. We hope this program helps normalize an alternative to the current status quo of wasteful consumption— concretizing environmentally conscious habits that participants can carry forward within other aspects of their lives within their communities.

Written by: BYO

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