7-Eleven #CupRescue Schools Program empowers schools to lead community cup recycling

7-Eleven Australia Media Release,
24.03.21

7-Eleven Australia has been the pioneering partner of Simply Cups since 2018. The Simply Cups program has rescued more than 16 million cups from landfill and is continuously working with innovative new technologies to upcycle collected cups into a range of products. This week we hit the milestone of five million cups collected through our network of stores.

Despite our partnership, more than one billion single use cups end up in landfill in Australia every year. 7-Eleven would like to change that.  We’re offering high schools free infrastructure and tools to empower young Australians to inspire change in the community. Fifty schools are already participating in the program, and we want to encourage as many high schools as possible to be part of it.

High school students around Australia can access free infrastructure to help them champion rescuing single use cups from landfill through the 7-Eleven #CupRescue Schools Program.

According to 7-Eleven CEO and Managing Director, Angus McKay, the program has gone live in more than 50 schools since it launched in late 2020, but there’s ambitious plans to rapidly expand.

“Young people are the voice in many households and communities challenging us on the amount of waste that ends up in the landfill bin. That is certainly the case for me, and for many others in the 7-Eleven team,” Mr McKay said.

“We decided to engage young Australians to lead the way in their communities by developing a program that gave schools and students practical tools to empower them to make a difference.

“Fifty schools have partnered with us since launch but that’s just the start. We’re asking any high school that is willing to collect cups and drop them back to their local 7-Eleven to sign up via www.7eleven.com.au/cuprescue.

“We’ll provide participating schools with free cup collection units to enable students and staff to collect cups at their school. All the school needs to do is collect cups and drop them off at their partnering 7-Eleven store.

“I’d love to get cup recycling at every high school in Australia with a local 7-Eleven.”

Mr McKay said that the new extension of the #CupRescue program has been launched with the aim to increase cup recycling efforts throughout the community.

“We partnered with Simply Cups in 2018. Together we have saved more than 16 million cups from landfill. While that’s a start, we want more to be recycled,” he said.

“7-Eleven is the leader in coffee in convenience, selling more than 80 million cups a year. For me, leading the market in the number of cups we sell, means we need to lead in reducing how many single use cups end up in landfill.

“We’ve installed cup recycling units in more than 660 7-Eleven stores across Australia. But we want to do more. We want to change community habits so that firstly, as many customers as possible use reusable cups, and that we recycle at least as many single use cups as our customers use each year.”