An eco-conscious teen has launched a petition for coffee cup recycling points to be introduced in St Albans city centre in a bid to reduce waste.
Olivia Herries, 17, decided to start a petition after noticing the sheer amount of coffee cups which were being discarded in normal litter bins and on the streets.
She is hoping that St Albans can follow in the footsteps of Oxford who have introduced specific coffee cup bins which allow the lid and cup to be recycled separately.
Olivia said: “I visited Oxford last year and in the centre they had these really strange looking bins and I had no idea what they were for.
“I didn’t even realise coffee cups could be recycled at that point and these bins had a compartment for a lid and the cup.
“I got back to St Albans and realised how much waste there was and wanted to do something about it.”
Olivia added that now coffee shops are engrained as part of our high street culture the coffee shop waste will continue to get worse If nothing is done.
She stressed: “There’s so many coffee shops now, it really has become part of the town centre to meet up with your friends or go out with your parents, it’s part of the high street now.
“There’s no option to sit in at the moment and if you go around mid-afternoon, the bins are full up with coffee cups.
“Reusable cups are great but the sad truth is that not everyone remembers to bring it every time, the bins are a half way point.”
In order to get her message across, Olivia got to work on filming a YouTube to discuss the current issue of coffee cup waste in the city and what could be done to combat this.
She said: “I wanted to do it fairly early in the morning and didn’t want loads of people to be around, I wanted it to be blue skies to show St Albans in its full glory.
“I think a video is a good way to promote a message these days, people don’t love reading through a long text anymore.”
Check out the video here.
Sign the petition here.
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