Bristol-headquartered café group Boston Tea Party, which six years ago became the first in the UK to eliminate single-use cups, has launched a challenge to its larger rivals to follow its lead.
Describing the bold campaign as a way of shaking up the industry, it said the big coffee chains now needed to take responsibility for their environmental impact. 
Boston Tea Party, which operates 23 cafés stretching from Birmingham to Barnstaple – including five in Bristol – estimates it has prevented a million single-use cups from being thrown into landfill since its ban started in 2018.
At the time, the UK was discarding 2.5bn disposable coffee cups annually, with less than 0.25% being recycled.
It is now using the milestone of 1m cups saved to urge the UK’s largest café chains to step up and match its commitment to a more sustainable future.
Boston Tea Party CEO Sam Roberts is clear about the importance of the challenge.
“We’re not just patting ourselves on the back here – this campaign is about shaking up the industry,” he said.
“If we can do it, why can’t the big guys? The environmental impact of single-use cups is something we can’t ignore any longer.”
The hospitality industry has immense power to drive real change, he added, and his firm was calling on everyone to step up and take responsibility.
“We knew this wouldn’t be an easy move for us, and it won’t be easy for the bigger chains either, but that’s no excuse,” he added.
“If we don’t act now, we’re just kicking the can down the road. The reality is that this needs to become standard across the board.
“There’s no reason why bigger players with more resources can’t match or exceed what we’ve done.”
Boston Tea Party’s ‘Hey, Big Coffee Chain’ campaign aims to build a movement around eliminating single-use cups.
The group is encouraging people to sign a petition to help drive a nationwide ban on single-use coffee cups and push the big chains into taking responsibility for their environmental impact.
Boston Tea Party’s reusable cup scheme remains central to the campaign, with three simple options for customers:
- Bring your own: Customers are encouraged to bring any reusable cup or mug.
- Borrow a cup: BTP operates a scheme that allows customers to borrow a reusable cup for £2, which is fully refundable when they return it.
- Buy a cup: Ecoffee cups are available in small, medium and large, starting from £4.25.
The café group also continues to donate 10p from every takeaway hot drink to the Boston Foundation, providing workplace opportunities and hands-on experience to young people local to its cafes, ensuring that even small efforts have a big impact in the communities they serve.
