Urban Coffee House use bio cups for gardening

The cafe have started a recycling station, where you can donate your takeaway coffee cup, to be used as a little pot for seedlings.

As the cups are biodegradable, anyone can take a seedling in a cup and plant it straight in their garden.

Urban Coffee House owner Rheannan Sweeney said the idea was thanks to one of her staff members, Jasmine Don, who has an excellent green thumb.

“My staff and I have been brainstorming ways to reuse the bio cups we serve our coffee in and this is what we have come up with,” Ms Sweeney said. 

“We now have a little recycling station set up at the cafe were customers can drop off their used bio cup, we then plant seeds in them.

“These seedlings are growing in the cups on the veranda of the cafe, and are free for anyone to take.

“We have a coin donation box, but we only ask 50 cents or so per plant.

“We are not trying to raise money, we are just hoping to cover cost of potting mix.”

The recycling station has only been set up for a week but has already been well received, with good donations of cups as well as keen interest from the community.

“Everyone seems to really like the idea, we are so happy everyone is getting involved,” Ms Don said.

“We really just wanted to create a way to reuse these cups, there are so many around we may as well do something with them.” 

This is not the first recycling initiative from Urban Coffee House, with a communal cup shelf set up inside.

“The shelf is full of BYO cups.

“We often get customers who usually come in and have forgotten their own cup. This shelf is there for people to take a cup, use it (get there 20 cents discount) and return it clean whenever suits,” Ms Sweeney said. 

“This is just a few ways we are trying to reduce our impact as a cafe on the environment.” 

For now the seedlings are all edible but the cafe hope to start planting some flowers soon for everyone to enjoy.