An estimated 7,000 people show up on a Wednesday night to hear popular bands perform at the biweekly Concert in the Commons in Excelsior.The crowd consumes thousands of beers, but you wouldn’t know it by the number of beer cups in the trash. That’s because there were very few left behind because they’re reusable.
“What’s really important to Rotary, our club as well as Rotary International, is the environment,” says Laura Hotvet of the Excelsior Rotary Club. “So, when we’re throwing an event with thousands of people and we’re able to bring in a reusable product versus a single-use plastic cup, why wouldn’t we do that?”
They used cups provided by a Minneapolis-based company, r.Cup, which collects the cups and reuses them at other events. Attaining the goal of keeping the cups out of landfills depends on people who attend an event using the cups putting them in special receptacles for the company to collect. “People out here want to do the right thing,” Hotvet says. “They want to help the environment.
They throw it in the black bin. We’ve harvested back 98% of the cups that have gone out.”
The CEO of r.Cup, Michael Martin, attended the Gear Daddies concert last summer to see Excelsior Rotary implement their plan. “Oh my God, it’s unbelievable,” he said while watching the huge crowd in Excelsior. “We’re the first reuse company in North America. There’s now 150. We launched the entire industry. It’s the biggest trend in the environmental movement right now.” According to his company’s website, approximately 4 billion cups end up in landfills from live events in North America alone so there’s plenty of room for growth in the industry.
The real key to the idea of reusable cups is the simplicity of how it works after people throw their cups in the special r.Cup receptacles at an event.
“We take the cups to our wash hubs we built in conjunction with Ecolab, a Minnesota-based company … sterilize the cups and bring them back over and over. They can be used hundreds of times.” Martin said.
If your Rotary club sponsors community concerts or events – consider whether you can send a message about reducing single use plastic. Laura Hotvet (laurahotvet@gmail.com) would be happy to share more about her club’s efforts. They will be doing this again next year – Laura said our community would be upset if we didn’t.
