By Lorrin Windahl.

You would have to be living under a rock to not have seen or heard about Craig Reucassel’s War on Waste series on the ABC. The final episode on Tuesday night was directed at coffee consumers who believe that their disposable paper coffee cups are recycled. Word up, most cups are not.

It is deeply concerning to learn that, according to the show, one billion cups get sent to landfill each year in Australia. One billion! That’s appalling. And largely this figure is because these cups cannot or are not recycled in Australia. Most paper cups are lined with a plastic coating which means they won’t be recycled. Only a small number of paper cups are only waxed on the inside and these, according to the University of Queensland, can and are recycled. But putting the wrong one into your recycling bin can have detrimental results if it gets into the paper recycling stream. And in terms of foam cups, forget it. They are not recycled and they stay around for aeons. In fact, foam is so bad that some countries have banned it from being used in packaging.

But it can’t be denied, we Melburnians love our coffee. What’s a beard wearing, single speed fixie riding hipster to do? Well, one word – KeepCup. A product that we at Cobalt are very proud to have designed. It’s designed especially for Australian coffee drinkers and made in Australia too. But seriously, let’s start thinking about our impact and being responsible for our own actions; stop putting our heads in the sand and start using reusable coffee cups (preferably KeepCups!).

And as an extra incentive, if your children’s future or our dying planet are not enough, you can head over to responsible cafes who list cafes in Australia who will give you a discount when you bring your own cup.

Bottoms up!

You can watch all 3 episodes of War on Waste on ABC’s iView. Or learn more about the design of the KeepCup range.