It’s National Recycling Week, and to mark the occasion 7-Eleven has launched the Cup Rescue Schools Program, to help inspire a generation of young eco-warriors.
The program will see infrastructure placed into 100 schools over the next financial year to allow for greater recycling efforts across the country.
Thanks to 7-Eleven’s partnership with Simply Cups, its takeaway cups can be recycled, and once collected from the cup collection units they are transformed into up cycled items such as kerbing, car stops, and garden beds.
It’s estimated that more than one billion cups end up in landfill each year and so 7-Eleven with Simply Cups have a goal to recycle 100 million cups via their joint initiative.
More than 630 Cup Rescue units have been deployed across 7-Eleven stores since 2018, and to date seven schools have already had recycling units installed. Nine more schools will be set up over the next month.
Since its launch, the Simply Cups program has diverted more than 14.5 million cups from landfill, with more than 4.3 million of those being from 7-Eleven stores.
Angus McKay, CEO at 7-Eleven, said: “We’re one of Australia’s leading coffee retailers, and we acknowledge that the amount of coffees we sell is contributing to the number of cups going into landfill.
“We partnered with Simply Cups in 2018 to take the lead on this issue in Australia and be part of the solution to make take away cups recyclable.
“We believe engaging young Australians – who are passionate drivers of change – will enable us to achieve our goal of diverting as many cups as possible from landfill.”
As an owner of one of the stores I am delighted to know of this initiative – congratulations