A petition has been set up to ban single-use plastic cups at this year’s Tramlines Fringe Festival.
Greg Hewitt, founder of local environmental volunteer group Sheffield Action on Plastic, said: “When I started going to Tramline Fringe [fest] and visiting the venues that take part, I noticed that they all were using single-use plastic cups.
“If there’s 30 venues or something, and they’re all using a couple of thousand cups each, you really start adding it all up and you think, wow, the impact of this event through the Fringe Fest has a huge, huge impact on the environment.”
Councillor Kurtis Crossland, Chair of communities, parks and leisure committee, said: “Recycling cups is definitely something we have to look into and make sure we’re doing the right thing, as things evolve over time without us even thinking about it.
“If the petition makes us stop and think as decision makers, it’s a good thing.”
Sheffield Action on Plastic offers pint, half-pint and coffee cups, as well as wine goblets, all for hire and donated by various businesses.
Loadhog, a Sheffield sustainability packaging company, have donated about 300 cups to the cause, alongside corporations like ReUz and Swag Box.
Rental costs 10p per cup, or 25p if people want to fund the organisation further.
Mr Hewitt said: “We’ve now have got to the point where we’re at 5,000 cups, but it’s still not gonna be enough to cover everything.
“That’s why we’re working with a Derby company called Circulayo, which has hundreds of thousands of cups, so they can come in and top up our existing cups.”
The petition, calling for a ‘reusable revolution’, currently has 64 signatures out of 100 and local institutions like The Washington pub support the initiative.
“If you hire cups through us, then you don’t need to have them washed because you just collect them back in, and then we’re gonna get them washed and Circulayo has a larger system and can wash hundreds of thousands of cups.”
Greg Hewitt has been an environmentalist for fifteen years and started the volunteer group two years ago after moving to Sheffield.
He said: “ I set up the organization really to kind of tackle these kinds of issues around single-use plastics and plastic pollution; to work with the community to get them to reduce their single-use plastic.
“All volunteers are trying to engage the community with businesses and community organizations, and events to try and make a difference.”
Featured image via Sheffield Action on Plastics