Coffee cup waste under spotlight through student campaign

13 September 2023

Our Accounting students are placing coffee cup waste under the spotlight.

Every year, a staggering 760,000 single-use coffee cups are disposed of at Monash University’s Australian campuses. And across the country, a mind-blowing estimated 1.8 billion disposable cups are discarded.

Most end up in landfill.

The figures are a stark reminder of the dire environmental impact of our throwaway culture - a problem particularly relevant to coffee-obsessed Melburnians.

“Disposable paper cups are usually lined with plastic, making them difficult to recycle and leading to long-lasting waste,” Monash Business School accounting student Trang Luong said. “They often end up in landfill or as litter, contributing to pollution and harming ecosystems.”

But change is brewing on campus with the launch of the Waste on Show campaign to raise awareness and help address the issue.

As part of their Accounting for Sustainability unit, students conducted their own single-use coffee cup waste audit, each observing one campus café for an hour.

The results were startling: almost 5,000 single-use coffee cups were purchased by staff and students across 85 hours.

“This figure made us more aware and conscious of our own responsibility as Monash students to be mindful of our consumption behaviours,” student Neath Tim said.

Under the next phase of their artful plan, special bins have been placed around the Clayton campus until 2 October, where people can dispose of single-use paper cups.

The cups will be collected and used in artwork at the Waste on Show event on 3 October.

On the day, staff and students will have the opportunity to participate in activities such as painting the single-use cups as they are strung up to provide a visual account of single-use cup waste.

“We hope to educate our peers to become more sustainable and conscious of our consumption behaviour,” student Hilsile John said.

“If we can influence more people to use reusable cups and reduce their environmental footprints, hopefully it will result in a greener campus for the community.”

Ms Luong encouraged everyone to get involved.

“We would like to invite our peers to join us on the Waste on Show Day, participating in different activities that we are hosting,” she said. “We think everyone will learn a bit more about their own impact on the environment if they can make time to see us on that day.”

Ms Tim added that following the event, all the cups would be disposed of responsibly through a collaboration with recycling group SimplyCups.

Accounting for Sustainability lecturer Annemarie Conrath-Hargreaves said the project and its culmination in a thought-provoking visual account of waste was about changing mindsets. “The more landfill we create, the more emissions we create, and the more we contribute to climate change – so, every cup counts,” she said.

Dr Conrath-Hargreaves noted more broadly, the project demonstrated the changing role of accountants in the business world.

“Australia, along with many other countries around the globe, is moving to mandatory climate-related disclosures, which will have wide-ranging implications on business behaviour and decision-making,” she said.

“The Waste on Show project highlights that as accountants, through accounting for impact, we play an important role in tackling climate change as the defining global challenge of our time.”

To find out more, visit the students’ Waste on Show website or their Instagram.