The Overton Cup

Who wouldn't want to be seen walking around Overton with one of these in their hands? Check out the Overton Cup!

Here's how it works.

When you buy your usual favourite hot drink, smoothie or soup at some of our local shops or cafes, you can pay a deposit of just £1 to use one of these fancy reusable plastic cups.

When you’ve finished with your cup you then pop it into any of our dirty or used Overton Cup deposit points in the village, either straight away or later when it suits you. As long as it isn’t damaged, you get your £1 back. You don’t have to return your cup to where you purchased your drink, it can be returned to any deposit point.

Perfect for when you’ve forgotten to bring your own reusable cup from home, or want the convenience of a takeaway cup, but with a much lower impact on the planet.

Using a reusable cup multiple times instead of a single-use disposable one reduces waste, reduces litter, and saves carbon and trees

I didn't know that...

7 million disposable cups are used and binned in the UK per day. This is equivalent to 150,000 per year for a village with the population of Overton.

Disposable cups and lids are either made of plastic or bio-plastic (PLA) and are single-use and non-recyclable. They are used for an average of 15 minutes before being binned.

PLA-based cups are better than conventional plastic cups, but they still use energy and resources, still form plastic waste, and still have to be thrown in the black waste bin after a single use. They cannot themselves be recycled, and risk contaminating other recycling. PLA is often labelled as compostable but this refers to industrial composting and not home composting. We don’t have an industrial composting facility.

Hang on, but isn't this just another plastic cup?

Yes, but they're made from polypropylene, a food-safe plastic that is strong, durable and recyclable. By choosing a reusable cup that’s made from plastic, we are using the material for its proper use: plastic lasts a long time so we should use it for a long time. These cups are designed to be used hundreds, if not thousands of times. They are a means to address the problem of single-use, where an item that can last forever is used only once, for just a few minutes.

Right, so what’s wrong with compostable cups?

Compostable cups, though plastic free, are still single use. They get used for an average of 15 minutes before being thrown away, and then need to be sent to a special industrial composting facility in order to be composted. We don’t have such a facility so they get binned with the rest of the rubbish and incinerated. The only proper solution is to avoid single-use and have a reusable cup.

But will it actually keep my drink hot?

These are not thermos cups, but they will keep your hands safe and your drinks hot just like any disposable cup.

It feels a bit flimsy, what happens if it breaks?

To keep costs low the design is simple, compared to ‘keep cups' but the cup is robust and designed to last for hundreds of uses. If it does break please do return it to a deposit point for recycling, however your £1 is not returned if the cup deposited is broken.

What about a lid?

You may be offered a standard disposable lid for your cup, or you may be offered a reusable silicone one. You can purchase a reusable silicone lid for £1 but, unlike the cup, you keep the lid forever and it does not form part of the deposit scheme.

Which cup is most environmentally friendly?

We can compare the carbon footprints. If you chose an Overton Cup 7 times instead of 7 disposable cups, you will use 41% less carbon. If you use an Overton Cup every day for 6 months instead of 182 single-use disposable cups, then you will save 95% of the carbon.