
Killarney to Dump One-Trip Cups
Killarney plans to dump single-use coffee cups this Summer. If it succeeds, it will become the first town in the country to do so.
Some 25 independent coffee shops and 21 hotels have signed up to a scheme to stop serving coffee and tea in single use cups by the end of the month. The promoters of the scheme claim it will remove over one million single use coffee cups from the town each year, reducing waste by 18.5 tonnes.
Coffee drinkers will be encouraged to use their own re-usable cups in the first instance, or to use a reusable cup which they will supply for a €2 refundable deposit which can be collected locally or at any of 350 locations. The move to free the town of single use coffee cups follows voluntary clean-ups of the town and the nearby Killarney National Park, which revealed that the cups were one of the most common forms of waste recovered by volunteers.
Each of the participating coffee shops and hotels have agreed to sign up to the project for a year. The project has also been supported by local partners, including the Killarney Chamber of Tourism and Commerce, Kerry County Council and 2GoCup.