Aarhus residents have returned 750,000 reusable cups in one year

We use approximately 300 million disposable cups and mugs per year in Denmark. Cups that after a few minutes of use turn into waste that either ends up in waste bins or in nature. But in Aarhus there is an alternative to disposable cups when you want to enjoy, for example, a good cup of coffee on the go.

Aarhus Municipality, in collaboration with TOMRA, launched the world's first automated deposit system for to-go cups as a three-year pilot project on January 17, 2024.

“It has been fantastic to see how many Aarhus residents and business owners have taken the lead and been ready to test new solutions to the challenges of disposable packaging. Aarhus supports a development towards more standardized reusable solutions, and we are experiencing great national and international interest in the project. I hope that our experiences can contribute positively to, for example, the national partnership for reusable packaging, for which funds have just been allocated in the Finance Act,” says Nicolaj Bang, Councillor, Technology and Environment, Aarhus Municipality.

Aarhus residents are satisfied with the system

A new study shows that almost 9 out of 10 Aarhus residents are aware of the deposit system, and that 39 percent have tried the REUSEABLE system at least once. Eighty-four percent of users are satisfied or very satisfied with the system.

As a customer, you pay a deposit of five kroner if you choose a reusable cup for your to-go drinks. The deposit is automatically returned to your payment card when you return it to one of the 25 REUSEABLE collection machines in central Aarhus.

On average, 2,500 cups are returned per day. Eighty-seven percent of the cups sold are returned. In comparison, the return rate for cans and bottles with a deposit in Denmark is 92 percent.

“We are really happy that the people of Aarhus have accepted the system so well and the return rate is already 87 percent after only one year. Each cup has a unique serial number, which is why we can follow its journey. The cup that has been reused the most has been returned and washed 44 times, and you can’t see difference between it and an unused cup. So our initial experiences with reusable packaging are positive. The next step is to expand the trial to include more types of reusable packaging,” says Kim Gulvad Svendsen, Head of Urban Life, Technology and Environment, Aarhus Municipality.

Facts

• The REUSEABLE study is based on 1,039 web interviews with residents of Aarhus Municipality, collected via Epinion's permanent panel partners. The responses were collected in the period from November 26 to December 8, 2024.

• In Aarhus, approximately half of the waste collected from the city's trash cans and thrown on the street is from takeaway packaging. In particular, many to-go cups and beer mugs are left behind in the city.

• Disposable cups are among the 10 most common types of plastic found in Danish nature. They are typically made of plastic or plastic-coated cardboard and are used for an average of just 15 minutes, after which they become waste. coffee_cups_dk_report_danish_for_on-screen_reading.pdf

• Disposable cardboard cups are most often made of cardboard and plastic foil (PLA liner), which are difficult to separate. Therefore, disposable cups can rarely be recycled. A reusable plastic cup can reduce CO2 emissions by more than 70 percent compared to a disposable cup (Eunomia 2023). By recycling to-go cups instead of throwing them away after a short period of use, we also avoid producing waste.

• Aarhus is experiencing great national and international interest in the trial of reusable and washable to-go cups – Oslo Municipality is, among others, investigating the possibilities of introducing the same system.

• As part of the Finance Act, funds have now been allocated to establish a national partnership that will bring together municipalities, businesses, restaurants and other stakeholders to develop and standardize solutions for recyclable packaging. The goal is, among other things, to create a common framework for deposit and return systems that can make it easier and more accessible for everyone to choose recycling.

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