The UK’s first tech-enabled reusable food and drink packaging solution introduces reusable coffee cups. 

To combat the 2.5-billion-plus cups that end up in landfill each year in the UK, Cauli – the award-winning, tech-enabled, reusable packaging scheme – has unveiled the next phase of the reuse revolution with the launch of their fully reusable and recyclable CauliCups. 

Manufactured sustainably in the Czech Republic, the cups are injection moulded and made from 100-per-cent polypropylene, which is a fully recyclable material. They can be reused 400 times before being returned to manufacturers to be recycled into new products.

Following successful implementation of their popular reusable CauliBox lunchboxes, partners started demanding Cauli to provide a solution for reusable coffee cups, noting these to be a key area of waste. In response, Cauli has spent the past six months developing the cups and technology, and has just announced they are now ready for launch. 

Available in 10oz and 12oz size, with 16oz cups in the pipeline for the future, initial orders have come from Barts Health NHS Trust and a number of banks in Canary Wharf, whose employees will benefit from reducing their single-use drinks container waste.

“Our mission is to make sustainable dining as accessible as possible”

On the launch of the cups, Cauli co-founder and CEO Josephine Liang, stressed that Cauli’s mission is to make sustainable dining as accessible as possible. “We are delighted to enable our catering partners to eliminate disposable coffee cups, one of the most difficult types of waste to recycle. I love caffeine as much as I love sustainability, and we are delighted to say our users do not have to choose between a hot cup of joe or the planet anymore!”

Cauli is committed to building a circular economy to tackle the 11 billion pieces of food packaging waste that are generated in the UK every year. Within their closed-loop system, the containers are used, returned to the return points (CauliKiosks), washed and repeatedly reused. 

Since inception in 2019, the company has forged over 20 commercial partnerships for their award-winning CauliBoxes, counting Societe Generale, Westminster City Council and various NHS Hospital trusts amongst their clients. Up to July 2022, Cauli customers have prevented 16,907 disposables entering landfill, a CO2 saving of 3,991kg or the equivalent of 6.4 return flights from London to New York.

Once a CauliBox or CauliCup reaches the end of its life, Cauli arranges recycling. Alongside this, partners are provided with environmental impact statistics to help achieve their CSR goals, while users earn CauliCoins each time they use a CauliBox or CauliCup, which can be collected and redeemed as sustainable discounts and rewards.

Founded as the UK’s first reusable food packaging scheme by Josephine Liang and Ming Zhao, in just two and a half years, the business has pioneered QR scanning in Europe in enabling reusable borrows and returns to combat the 11 billion pieces of packaging waste that are produced every year from food-on-the-go. CauliBox was named CleanTech of the Year by West London Business in 2022 and was awarded the NHS Sustainability Partnerships Innovation Award 2021.