Environmental advocates have labelled the move by a petrol station cafe chain to ban reusable coffee cups as ‘ridiculous’.
Petrol station giant On the Run has told all their outlets to to inform customers they must use the company’s disposable coffee cups instead, The Advertiser reported.
The South Australian company highlighted the risk to food safety from bacteria and mould as the reason for the new ban, while other outlets have been moving in the opposite direction.
Petrol station giant On the Run has told all outlets to to inform customers they must use the company’s disposable coffee cups instead of reusable ones
A spokesperson for On the Run said the decision had been made in the best interests of their customers.
‘OTR is subject to stringent food safety laws which also contain health and hygiene obligations for food handlers with the aim to lower the incidence of foodborne illness,’ the spokesperson said.
Not all customers were happy with the decision and this forced OTR to release a second statement for clarity on the issue.
The South Australian company highlighted the risk to food safety from bacteria and mould as the reason for the new ban
‘OTR have been interested in researching reusable cups for many years. We’ve had entire projects searching for the best reusable coffee flasks, and have sold them in store,’ the statement read.
The statement also said the company was well aware of the ‘effect of disposable coffee cups on the environment’.
Estimates are that more than one billion disposable cups are in use in Australia alone, many of which end up in landfill because they can’t be recycled. However, the health risks were too much for OTR to ignore.
‘We have had many incidents of customers bringing in dirty, unhygienic, contaminated cups, more recently we had an incident where a customer brought a cup in that was contaminated with a heavy metal,’ the spokesperson said.
There is a rise in the popularity of reusable coffee cups but OTR said they present too many health risks for customers
South Australia Health confirmed there is currently no policy or regulation that would directly impact on reusable cups.
Meanwhile DoSomething Foundation founder Jon Dee has slammed the move from OTR.
‘Banning reusable cups is a ridiculous move by OTR, it goes against what all the other major coffee shop chains and service stations are doing throughout Australia and around the world,’ he said.
Mr Dee went so far as to tell the SA government it needed to intervene and ‘stop this ban’.