Geraldine’s Cafe Verde is living up to its name.
With verde meaning green in Spanish, the cafe’s move to eliminate waste by stopping the use of single-use coffee cups could be seen as particularly apt.
Cafe spokeswoman Bo Mackenzie said at the beginning of the month the cafe phased out their single-use takeaway cups.
Mrs Mackenzie said the cafe no longer wanted to be ‘‘part of the problem’’.
She said while plant plastics were a better option, ‘‘it still requires fossil fuels for processing, and by phasing it out it is one less thing that needs to be created’’.
She said a lot of customers had purchased keep cups.
‘‘Overall, people have been very positive.’’
For people wanting a takeaway option, they had a range of freshly cleaned Pics’ glass jars with a lid to keep the coffee contained.
There was also a large range of keep cups for sale.
But if those options did not suit the customer, there was also a mug library.
It was one of the many steps they were taking to reduce their environmental footprint.
While the cafe’s scraps had ‘‘always’’ gone to a local’s well-fed chickens, and their coffee grounds to another’s garden, they wanted to extend that.
The cafe’s soft plastics are cleaned and collected before being delivered to a soft plastic recycling depot in Christchurch.
Every staff member had an equal say when it came to eliminating waste.
They had chosen to stock Karma’s drinks in the cafe which was an ethical and plastic-free brand, and they had changed milk suppliers to a company that collected the empty bottles to take to a processing plant.
‘‘It is still very early days, we are always looking for opportunities.’’
Mrs Mackenzie said one of the forces behind the change was her husband Joe, a co-owner of the cafe.
While the couple were more aware of the problem because of their 5-year-old son Anton, Mr Mackenzie had spent countless moments picking up rubbish on the side of the road with his family as a child.
She said it ‘‘certainly made him more aware’’.
Mr Mackenzie’s background made an impact on all of his siblings.
‘‘I think his parents have done an incredible job.
‘‘Living by our values is very important to us.’’
She hoped the cafe’s reduction of waste would inspire a shift in consciousness. She hoped staff, customers and suppliers could see what they could all achieve and implement some of those changes in their everyday lives.
