Recycle this! Exeter’s coffee cup conundrum

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Have you ever found yourself on campus clutching endlessly onto an empty coffee cup, hoping to eventually come across a cardboard recycling bin? I predict that you inevitably settled for a ‘non-recyclables’ bin or passed off the cup as a ‘tin can.’

Despite the passing moment of guilt you probably felt – rest assured that this was not your fault. One day, when I too was searching for a bin in which to chuck my empty cup of joe, it dawned on me. There actually are no cardboard bins.

So I decided to test my hypothesis. I counted all the bins on the bottom floor of the Amory building and here’s what I found. Of the twenty-eight bins on the ground floor of the Amory building, a grand total of zero were designated for cardboard waste. Whilst this is only a small sample set, I urge you to repeat this experiment in any building on campus and I can almost guarantee that you will get the same results.

You might think that ‘paper’ bins are just the same. However, they have been designed to specifically keep out coffee cups, by virtue of having only a small slit – which you can see in the image below.

Students can buy coffee from a vast array of outlets on campus, including a Pret-a-Manger, a Starbucks and lots of University operated suppliers. When buying coffee from any University operated outlet however, a 40 pence levy is applied to single use cups. This would indicate therefore that the University of Exeter does consider sustainability a priority. Why then, are there no cardboard recycling bins?

Ellie, an Exeter University student, also noticed the lack of cardboard bins on campus. She said, ‘I went to put a piece of cardboard in the recycling yesterday, and there is just no space for cardboard.’ When I asked Kitty, a third-year student, if she had noticed the lack of cardboard bins on campus, she responded, ‘definitely!’ Daniele, a faculty member, has a hypothesis for the lack of cardboard bins. His view was that ‘it could be because coffee cups are not cardboard once they come into contact with liquid. On the other hand, if there is no paper recycling at all, it is a problem.’

On further investigation, I have found Daniele’s claim to be true. Coffee cups are not supposed to be disposed of in mixed-recycling due to the cross contamination caused by the milk in coffee. However, this does not mean that they cannot be recycled – they just require their own bin in order to be processed properly. Furthermore, the lack of cardboard bins in general, poses a problem which is not exclusive to coffee cups.

Domingo, a third-year student [pictured below], said that after a recent protest on the war in Gaza, cleaners were seen throwing away stacks of leaflets into general waste due to the lack of paper and cardboard bins in the Forum. It therefore seems that Exeter University cleaners, like students, have limited access to proper recycling infrastructure.

He went on to say, ‘it’s quite indicative of the university’s greenwashing face. They don’t really care about the climate crisis or recycling properly. They do what makes them look good and they easily overlook things that everyone else looks at.’

Other students however, such as Daisy, do believe that the university cares about sustainability. When asked whether she thought sustainability was a main consideration for the university, she said, ‘Yeah. I think It’s up there.’ Oscar, a fourth year Geography student [pictured below], says that the issue doesn’t bother him too much but that the university should ‘put its money where its mouth is.’

He explained that the university advertises their sustainability aims around campus and on their website, so there ought to be more investment in this area. He continued to explain that ‘they could use the levy applied to single-use cups to pay for coffee cup recycling bins.’ I have reached out to the University Press Office for comment.