Green Gown Awards 2019 - University of Chester - Finalist

The Caring Cup project was designed and implemented by the Green Impact team in the library to simultaneously reuse single use coffee cups discarded in the library and provide support to the homeless community in Chester. In the first three months the team collected 1705 coffee cups, with a total of 10,196 collected in the library up until April 2019.  

The team collected, cleaned and reused the cups for planting seedlings as part of VeggieFest and handed out 250 Caring Cups in the first week of term in which students and staff could collect their loose change. Along with other fundraising activities the team raised £1042.79 that was donated to the local charity ShareAid helping to provide support to the local homeless community. 

Top 3 learnings 

• One idea and a few people is all it takes to start something big. 
• People are unlikely to use a disposable cup if they see their colleagues cleaning them! 
• Keep saving the planet, even if it’s cleaning out old dairy products…