Written on 16^th November 2017

Qantas rewards small businesses for recycling coffee cups

As National Recycling Week gets underway, Qantas is encouraging small businesses to lead the way and help Australia solve the challenge of recycling coffee cups by rewarding them with Qantas Points.

Qantas Business Rewards is partnering with Simply Cups to give members the opportunity to earn points when they purchase and collect coffee cups to be recycled in Australia’s first dedicated coffee cup recycling facility.

Members of Qantas Business Rewards can earn points and support recycling in three ways:

• 1 Qantas Point for every 2 Simply Cups branded (or co-branded) coffee cups purchased
• 1 Qantas Point for any 2 coffee cups collected and recycled (where available) by Simply Cups
• 1,000 Qantas Points for each Simply Cups collection container purchased

Currently there is no recycling facility in Australia that can recycle coffee cups that most Australians are using because the paperboard cups have a plastic lining to prevent leakage.

Simply Cups has fostered a new technology to separate the plastic liner from the paperboard outer cups and will be commissioning a recycling facility early next year.  This will allow each of the materials to be recycled into various recycled paper and plastic goods.

How Qantas Business Rewards members can benefit from partnering with Simply Cups

• A medium sized café uses on average 150,000 cups each year
• If these cafes purchased coffee cups through Simply Cups, they could earn more than 75,000 Qantas Points per year – and even more if they purchase a Simply Cups collection container and also collect coffee cups for recycling by Simply Cups
• As part of the existing Qantas Business Rewards scheme, these 75,000 points could be used as employee rewards like vouchers or experiences through the Qantas Store or an Economy return Classic Flight Reward from Sydney to Honolulu (plus taxes, fees and carrier charges). Businesses can also use the points to buy supplies for the office like a toaster, printer or TV through the Qantas Store and reduce their costs.
• Corporate offices can earn similar rewards by purchasing recycling tubes and collecting cups in office environments.

Source: Qantas