The Cupless Cup of Joe
The days of drinking your cup of Joe and tossing your single-use, plastic cup are hopefully coming to an end, thanks to this partnership between Air New Zealand and kiwi company twice.
In a press release, Air New Zealand is following through on their commitment to curb their plastic waste by simply doing away with one of the unnecessarily wasteful items in on board catering service; the coffee cup.
Have Your Coffee and Eat It Too
Twiice is a New Zealand based company that produces small-batch, hand made cups that are fully plant based and hence, fully edible. They are leak-proof, and they come in vanilla flavor, which has lend itself to be used as both cups and dessert bowls during the airline’s trial.
They currently are working on expanding their array of serve ware and expect to roll new products out hopefully next year. They don’t mention it on their release, but I’m very curious to find out what other objects they intend to produce. Plates, cutlery… and what else?
For the moment, it seems like this is only on a trial basis since the partnership is exploring ways of making production scalable to the airline’s demand in order to start considering as a long-term solution for their on board service as well as on all their lounges.
For reference, the airline goes through more than eight million commercially compostable coffee cups every year, so to switch all of their catering to this environmentally friendlier option would be incredibly impactful. The switch to edible cups would be a much greener option considering how much more efficient humans are at… ahem… composting… when contrasted with energy intensive commercial composting plants.
If you’re not planning on flying Air New Zealand for the time being, you can head to Twice website and order yourself a few of their edible cups for a mere $26 for a six pack.
Twiice edible cup, from twiice.com
Airlines Going Green(er)
Several airlines have stepped up their commitment to being slightly more green, with the lines of Alaska Air and their ‘Fill Before You Fly’ push to reduce their in flight use of disposable, single use cups, switching from plastic stirrers to compostable ones, and changing their on board safety cards to rock based instead of paper.
Air France, instead, allows their passengers to donate to reforestation programs through their Trip and Tree initiative, and Virgin Atlantic revolutionized the in flight amenity kit in a more sustainable way.
I, for once, am very happy that airlines are making some changes, even if it’s just to get on board with the changing times and realizing their younger, more environmentally conscious fliers expect more of them. I guess, as long as we’re not talking cancelling frequent flier programs…
December 5, 2019
Coffee isn’t typically served in plastic cups. Usually paper, paper with a sleeve or reusable China like mug.