Take out

Take away (or Take-out) coffee indirectly has been our salvation as a business this year. Having an increase in retail sales is lovely but not what we are geared towards. Amongst some businesses out there, just having a vessel to put a saleable beverage in has been their financial oxygen in 2020. This is understandable after the previous years leading up to Covid, where re-usable cups have been the focus. Big steps had been made in getting people accustomed to taking their own cups out and in cities like Bristol, there was even a cup-exchange system. Buy your cup and exchange it when you buy your next coffee somewhere. This is a great idea; just not in a pandemic.

There was a slightly alarming article from the telegraph this week, suggesting that takeaway cups that are not plastic-free (that’s most of them, sorry) are probably causing us to ingest plastic particles by the nano-million.  This is like the biggest surprise ever, that isn’t really a surprise at all. Although the temptation is now to list all of the things we consume that probably have plastic in, maybe we just have to use this article as a pointer and remember that we still have choices.  It is a choice to buy coffee from a plastic cup and if we are all honest with ourselves, we know that we can change this, in the same vein that re-usable cups were fast becoming the norm. This doesn’t mean that we should never buy takeaway coffee (or anything else) ever again. We should ask the vendor. This question is a gentle beginning and a good conversation opener. There are alternatives out there. It is also so much better that we make choices, rather than waiting for governments to dictate to us because we couldn’t do the right thing on our own.

I hope this isn’t too sanctimonious, I was just quietly (where probably only a google bot will see this) wondering what people are thinking and feeling about this?