Up for the Cup recycling campaign restarts

With the University’s catering outlets opening up to students, staff and visiting members of the public again, our disposable cup recycling scheme has also restarted.

Up for the Cup opened for collections last year, part of an ambitious, national campaign spearheaded by the environmental organisation Hubbub.

The target is to have 160,000 cups recycled in Northampton, as well as change people’s attitudes towards recycling, at various outlets over the town.*

The bins are eye catching and located near to other recycling stations around Waterside. They have been designed to encourage us to ‘sip and separate’ both the plastic lids and liquids from the cup when recycling.

This is an important procedure to follow to stop the liquid and lids ‘contaminating’ and preventing the recycling process.

These guidelines should be followed by consumers to ensure the maximum number of paper cups can be recycled:

• Take off the lid from your paper cup and dispose of it in the bin clearly marked ‘for lids’
• Make sure your paper cup is empty. If not, empty the liquid in the clearly marked liquid container
• When the cup is empty and the lid is removed, the paper cups can then be placed into the bin through the correct hole
• No other waste materials should be placed in any part of the bins.

Environment Adviser Emma Stone is the UON-lead on the campaign and said: “Lockdown may have put a temporary hold on the collection of cups, but as we start to get back to business as usual, it’s important that those of us buying refreshments in disposable paper cups ‘sips and separates’ for the Up for the Cup project.

“Pre-COVID, it was estimated that more than 1 million disposable cups cross the town are not recycled each year, resulting in a huge amount of unnecessary waste, so it’s vital we all do our bit to make sure they end up in the right place.”

*The full list of stakeholders where Up for the Cup recycling bins are located are:

• The Students’ Union, Waterside Campus
• Grosvenor Shopping, Northampton
• Northampton General Hospital
• Royal & Derngate Theatre, Northampton.

The cups will be recycled by Cawleys Waste Management.

You can find out more about the University’s sustainability work on our website or see Campus and Estate Services’ Instagram profile.