Charles Sturt University's reusable coffee cup success | Video

In an average year, CSU’s nine cafes dotted across the Orange, Bathurst, Dubbo, Wagga Wagga and Albury-Wodonga campuses churn through around 150,000 disposable coffee cups.

In the past 12 months, however, that has dropped by more than 50 per cent, with 79,632 disposable cups kept out of landfill thanks to a new environmental initiative.

The man behind the initiative is Brett Russell who is the university’s food and beverage services manager.

“This was our focus based on the ABC’s War on Waste program,” he said.

“Back then, only three per cent of people were bringing their reusable cup prior to the initiative.”

Mr Russell secured the backing of CSU’s nine eateries and then marketing and communication campaign began to encourage students, staff and visitors to bring in their own reusable cups.

“We provided a financial incentive to use a keep cup,” he said.

“You could bring your own coffee cup and have any type of coffee you like for $3.50.”

Mr Russell said CSU Green was always looking for ways to have a positive impact on the environment.

“We set an aim to have 50 per cent or less coffees to be sold in a disposable cup and we achieved that,” he said.

So successful has the initiative been that CSU recently won the Best Commercial Retail Campaign category for its ‘War on Waste Reuse Cup Campaign’ in the Tertiary Access Group’s national awards.

The university’s cafe staff also won the CSU Excellence Award for their efforts in marketing and communicating the initiative.

Mr Russell has worked for CSU for the past 25 years and said in terms of a successful campaign, he said this was a big one.

“In terms of an environment awareness and normalising sustainable behaviour, it’s been a great success,” he said.

CSU branded reusable cups are available for purchase on each campus and people are also welcome to bring their own.​