A cup a day keeps your carbon footprint at bay
- The first UK-made hot drinks vending eco-friendly cup is launched by FLAVIA® –
Basingstoke, UK, 20th June 2008: Each year millions of cups of coffee, tea and hot drinks are consumed out of disposable cups from vending machines at work. A significant number of these paper cups have an integral oil-based plastic lining in order to prevent leakage. Manufacturing these liners requires significant fossil fuels, and results in a product that is difficult to recycle. In an era where the need for businesses to reduce their environmental impact is a legislative and moral requirement, these issues are concerning customers and staff worldwide. FLAVIA®1(http://www.myflavia.com/
The N-viro cup is the first hot drinks vending eco-friendly cup to be manufactured in the UK: it uses a bio-plastic lining derived from corn instead of the standard oil-based lining. The result is a commercially compostable paper-board cup which is harvested from sustainable sources under the management of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative3. After use, the N-viro cups are collected via the Save a Cup4 scheme, the first of its kind developed with Mars Drinks, and taken to industrial composting facilities where they break down into compost for later use on farms and horticulture facilities across the UK.
The FLAVIA® N-viro cup is just one part of the Mars Drinks’ ‘Thirsty for Change’ (http://www.marsdrinks.com/
“We are committed to helping our clients make their operations more sustainable - this has been at the heart of developing our Thirsty for Change programme,” said Daniel Vennard, Sustainability and Corporate Affairs Director. “The N-viro cup is an important initiative which can help reduce the amount of waste going to landfill. The scheme, which we have pioneered with the not-for-profit company ‘Save a Cup’, allows the used N-viro cups to be collected and sent to specially identified composting facilities. We have committed 20% of our research and development budget to developing innovative changes to Mars products – which will make a positive difference to our business and our customers’ sustainability targets.”
FLAVIA® is celebrating the launch of the N-viro cup by offering a free case of their sustainable Brighter Tomorrow at Origin Malawi Garden teaTM to the first 150 companies ordering their eco-friendly cup.
To learn more about FLAVIA®’s N-viro cup, and ‘Thirsty for Change’ at Mars Drinks, please visit: www.marsdrinks.com and click on the ‘Thirsty for Change’ banner.
For further information, contact: Jenifer Davis– jdavis@thebluedoor.com, 01252 899969
Editors Notes:
1: FLAVIA® pioneered the first ‘Brew-by-Pack’
2: Created in 1955, Mars Drinks is the hot drinks division of the Mars Incorporated family, a global company with a turnover of over $18 billion in foods, drinks, snack food and pet care. Mars®, Snickers®, Bounty®, Maltesers®, Pedigree®, Whiskas®, Uncle Bens®, KLIX® and FLAVIA® are just a few of our most famous brands. Mars Inc. aims to be the global leader in all of its activities. In keeping with this philosophy, Mars Drinks is the market leader in drinks vending systems in its markets, namely UK, France, Germany, USA and Japan. A business with a turnover in excess of $350 million, we produce over one billion drinks per year with our two brands: FLAVIA® single portion fresh beverages; and KLIX® in-cup beverages. For further information please visit: www.marsdrinks.co.uk or www.mars.com/
3: The Sustainable Forestry Initiative protects endangered trees and nurtures local woodlands. For further information please visit: www.aboutsfi.org/
4. The Save a Cup scheme was established by the vending, food service and plastics industries to collect the millions of hard-wall polystyrene cups used in the UK every week. Mars Drinks was the founding member. For further information please visit: www.save-a-cup.co.uk/
