Six months to bring your own cup to UvA: Sales of coffee have dropped
Anyone who wants to get coffee at the UvA has had to bring their own cup since September. Have students and staff gotten used to the new policy? “I just drink less coffee.”
“Here it is,” Liraysa Konijn (25), master’s student in Business Administration sets her blue thermos cup on the table in the new Coffeestar on Roeter Island campus. Since all of UvA’s disposable cups have disappeared, Konijn purchased her own cup to get coffee from the vending machines and coffee bars. “It keeps the coffee warm and doesn’t leak, unlike the black plastic drinking cups the UvA handed out in September.”
New legislation bans disposable paper cups in businesses, offices, and institutions in the Netherlands as of January 1st, 2024. The UvA already discontinued disposable cups starting last September at UvA coffee machines and coffee bars, saving over 870,000 disposable cups in the first three months. In doing so, the university was ahead of the January 1st, 2024 regulations. In fact, the university had deemed that coffee vending machines on campus were not takeaway locations because the coffee was consumed on site on university grounds. Regulations banning free disposable plastic cups at takeaway locations went into effect as early as July 1st, 2023.
As of March 1st, 2024, disposable hard plastics were also abolished at UvA and HvA restaurants. In their place are trays, cups, and cutlery made of sugarcane. Smoothies and juices previously served in plastic cups on ice are now served in carafes that require you to bring your own cup. Starbucks iced coffee and some dairy products packaged in hard plastic have disappeared from the menu.
In its place came the Bring Your Own (BYO) policy. Anyone who wants to get coffee at the UvA must bring their own cup, either the black plastic coffee mug the university handed out once or one they purchase themselves. If this is not possible, people can buy a light green, reusable plastic cup at the coffee bars for one euro. It is still possible to drink coffee on site at the coffee bars using the coffee bar’s tableware.
A survey conducted by the UvA shows that in early October 2023, three-quarters of students brought their own cups. But a Folia tour of the Roeter Island campus and Science Park in late February paints a different picture.
“The BYO policy is a good initiative, and I really support it, but in practice, it is not convenient,” says Ivar Frisch (26), an artificial intelligence and philosophy student. “Many students, like me, forget to bring a cup. Then you are forced to buy a reusable one over and over again, which you eventually just throw away.”
In-between solution
At the Coffeestar on Roeterseiland campus, a quarter of customers bring their own cup, estimates the owner Jan Willem Keus. Fifteen percent purchase a reusable cup and the vast majority (60 percent) use the Coffeestar’s tableware.
Keus says: “We chose to keep using tableware because the plastic cups sell our product short. Milk and coffee adhere differently to plastic than to ceramic. Plus, the coffee cools faster in the cups and they are unsuitable for the dishwasher. They are too light, so they wind up flying all over the dishwasher, and you can’t get lipstick off, either.” So Keus sees the reusable cup as an interim solution. “Eventually, everyone has to start bringing their own cup, as they already do with water bottles.”
Not everyone seems ready for that yet. “I have never bought a cup,” confesses master’s student Anthina Kotsires (24) who is working on a presentation with fellow student Liraysa Konijn in the Coffeestar. So how does she get coffee now? “I don’t. Or I go to the Lebkov or the Albert Heijn. And I also just drink less coffee.”
This was also observed by HvA student Aleyna Colak, who investigated how the BYO policy caught on in the HvA’s Wibauthuis. “Students often find it annoying to bring their own cup. It doesn’t fit in their bag, and they also don’t like washing it out in the bathroom.” Kotsires agrees. “Besides, the bathrooms often no longer have paper towels, only hand dryers, so drying it is no longer possible, either.”
Less coffee being sold at the UvA
So students are often switching to places on campus where they can still get coffee in disposable cups, such as the Lebkov or the Albert Heijn, Colak also observes. Cashiers at the Albert Heijn confirm that it has become busier in recent months at the branch on Sarphatistraat, but that this may also be due to the new coffee machine with oat milk and reduced coffee prices.
Sales of coffee in vending machines and coffee bars at the UvA have dropped significantly since September. Last January the figures “improved” for the first time compared to previous months, Facility Services reports, which largely provides coffee at the UvA, but it remains to be seen whether the upward trend continues. “The goal of the legislation is for us as individuals to behave more sustainably. A behavioral change, such as bringing your own cup, always takes time. With communication sciences, we are working on projects that motivate people to actually do that.”
