Nelson cafes slap surcharge on customers who don't bring in their own coffee cups

June 21, 2018
Coffee cup (file picture).

Nelson cafes are banding together in an effort to be more sustainable by ditching plastic bags and adding a surcharge on disposable containers and coffee cups.

At Swedish Bakery and Cafe, customers who do not bring in their own reusable cups and containers for coffee, salads and soups are given a 50 cent surcharge to be donated to KidsCan, co-owner Bronwyn Eriksson told Stuff.

"Most people want to do this, they don't want a disposable cup every day," Ms Eriksson said.

"People who were coming in every day for their coffee, most of them have gone over now to bringing their own mug."

The bakery began including the surcharge in June.

Along with ditching bags and disposable cups and containers, the business recently switched their local milk supplier to one which uses glass bottles.

They're also using reusable beeswax wrappers in the kitchen instead of cling wrap, reducing their recycling "by 70 to 80 per cent".

"We had a bin overflowing every day and now it's full once a week."

River Kitchen introduced a 20 cent surcharge for disposable coffee cups last month.

Co-owner Clare Flemming said the cafe made the change to make their customers think about their waste and encourage the use of reusable cups.

"I don't think we use less takeaway cups yet, but definitely more people are remembering their keep cup," Ms Flemming told stuff.

The surcharge would be donated to an environmental group in Nelson each month, with the first $174.60 to be donated to the Nelson Environment Centre.

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