Cup, bottle, lunch box
What’s your hack to remember yours?
Ever get to the cafe and realise your reusable cup is hiding at the back of your cupboard? Or arrive at work empty-handed with your lunch still sitting in the fridge at home? We know the feeling. To reduce waste and save money, reusables are worth remembering - but that's often the hard part right?
Break-cup with single-use
Each year in the UK, we get through:
- Over 3 billion single use coffee cups (WRAP)
- Almost 8 billion plastic water bottles (The Environmental Audit Committee, 2017)
- And 11 billion items of lunch packaging (Hubbub, 2019)
These are some massive numbers. While bringing your own reusables sounds like a simple enough solution, it’s easier said than done - recent Hubbub polling in 2023 revealed that 32% of people intend to use a reusable but don’t have it with them, at least once a week.
Worth remembering
By making your own lunch and grabbing your reusable cup and water bottle before heading out the door, you’ll waste less and save money. 50p saved on coffee in a reusable cup? Yes please. Lunch on-the-go costing twice as much as making it ourselves? No thanks.
So how can we make it easier to remember our reusables? We’ve all got those funny little hacks to help us remember the essentials, like your passport before going on holiday, or the keys/wallet/phone check before leaving the house. Why not do the same to remember your cup, bottle and lunch box?
What’s your hack?
With funding from Ecosurety, Bunzl and Starbucks, we ran a digital campaign in London, Bristol and Glasgow targeting commuters, who are most likely to be buying food and drink in single-use packaging while on-the-go. We aimed to raise awareness of the benefits of using reusables, normalise their use and make people more likely to remember them. The campaign included:
- A campaign video featuring a range of playful hacks to help people remember their reusables, used for a digital advertising campaign targeting commuters
- A social media campaign supported by four influencers in London, Bristol and Glasgow, to share the campaign key messages from different perspectives on social media
- A vox-pop interviewing commuters on how they remember their reusables
- A digital guide to help businesses encourage their employees to choose reuse
What difference did we make?
The online campaign reached people 3.4 million times, receiving 1.3 million high-quality video views. Our post-campaign survey* indicated that:
- 77% of people who watched the campaign’s hero video agreed that it encouraged them to use reusables
- 71% of people agreed the video had made them more likely to remember their reusables
- 70% of people agreed that the video had made them more aware of the benefits of using reusables, e.g., saving money and reducing waste
- 38% of people said they’d increased their use of reusables while the campaign was live
*83 responses
Ready to choose reuse?
We've all got something at home we can use, so it’s time to dig out that cup, put your water bottle in your shoe or set 100 reminders on your phone to remember your lunch, whatever works for you.
- Share the video on social media and ask people what their hack is to remember the essentials
- Download the Refill app to see where you can refill your coffee cup, water bottle and lunch box
- Check out these tips for your workplace to encourage more people to use reusables
Curious to know more about Hubbub?
At Hubbub, we want to see a world where everyone makes choices that are good for the environment. Check out what we do and the difference we're making.