Good for the Planet
No more plastic lids as we introduce fully sustainable takeaway cups
As part our commitment to conservation and sustainability, we’re always looking at ways of improving our offering whilst being aware of our environmental impact. So when our Food and Beverage team were introduced to ‘The Good Cup’ by our very own zookeeper (and current Miss Earth Wales) Abigail Wood, they were keen to find out more. Abigail has since become an ambassador for the brand. Although a fairly new product, these takeaway cups will become widely available in the future, so we’re proud to be amongst the first companies in Wales to trial them!
The team were certainly impressed with The Good Cup’s ethos and the sustainability statistics speak for themselves! The new cups consist of one piece of paper material that folds into an easy to use cup with sip hole – with no PLA lining and no plastic lid, which means they are fully sustainable. So much so, you can even pop them in the compost bin along with your coffee grounds and they will biodegrade within just 6-12 months (as opposed to regular takeaway cups that take up to 200 years!).
At Folly Farm we use over 1/4 of a million takeaway cups every single year on the park. By making this switch – we’ll be saving over 1 tonne of single use plastics. In fact, the Good Cups could save 18 million tonnes of single use plastics in the UK each year alone!
As well as these (quite shocking) figures and us wanting to make a difference by offering a greener takeaway option – the cups also have a spill-proof design, can be used with a paper straw if guests wish, and are more hygienic as they limit lid handling. They’re very easy to open to add sugar and milk and easy to close too – a simple ‘push’ and ‘pull’ of the tabs that are labelled for the customer to fasten the in-built lid – and you’re away! Although, we’ve also introduced some handy ‘How to’ guides at our outlets to assist anyone using them for the first time!
“We’re really proud to be one of the first large attractions in Wales to start using The Good Cups. We’re always looking at ways of improving our green messaging and the fact these new cups
jack, conservation officer
are fully sustainable was a no brainer! In addition to being fully sustainable and allowing us to save such much as 1 tonne of single use plastic each year – the new cups
are more affordable, space saving and can be disposed of in any of our bins, making it so much easier for our guests, as well as our staff when sorting out the recycling waste on park!”
And remember – we also offer a discount on hot drinks at any of our outlets if a guest brings along their own reusable cup!