Geraldton cafe bosses aren’t fearful of plastic cup ban, promoting sustainability from the beginning

Iced-coffee, smoothie and cold drink lovers won’t have to fear the price of paper in Geraldton, because cafes in the city that have made the swap to non-plastic say the change won’t hit the customer in the hip pocket. On October 1, the State Government banned single-use plastic cups for cold drinks with a fine of $5000 for non-compliance. Although single-use plastic coffee cups won’t be phased out until February 2023, local businesses have already taken steps to become plastic-free without charging a fee. Cafe Fleur manager Hazel Forman is all for the plastic ban and was over the moon with the news. She said the cafe had already changed to compostable cardboard items. “Our take-away containers are all cardboard, their lids are compostable, we had already taken that step,” she said. Ms Forman said the cold coffee cups were the only item the cafe used containing plastic and has now phased them out. “It didn’t really change much for us other than our cold cups,” she said. “Our cold drink cups will now be in our 16 oz paper takeaway cups and we’ve got special paper lids instead of 50 per cent bio cups. Two Foreshore owner Jack Hoskins said the ban of single-use plastic cold cups was nothing but positive and he continued to buy paper stock at the same price. “It’s a positive change and a necessary change in the world we live in with plastics,” he said. “The suppliers have been really good to us and we’ve found some middle ground where we don’t have to increase price for our customers, which keeps them really happy.” Mr Hoskins said coffee cups, milkshake and iced drink cups were all 100 per cent bio-degradable with paper lids. He said he would have made the change sooner if there were options or supplies available. Mr Hoskins said although the business wasn’t completely plastic free — still selling plastic water bottles, ice cream containers and bulk food items from suppliers wrapped in plastic — plastic use had reduced by 75 per cent. Kai Lani owner Leanne Wilson said the business removed all bio-degradable plant plastic except for lids on coffee cups. She said there were no options to fit the cup. “It will go through what we know as a sugar cane material and the lids will eventually change to that,” she said. Ms Wilson said the cafe had used biodegradable cold-drink plastic cups since they opened a year and a half ago, and recently replaced them with paper. “We began using paper cold drink cups about a week before the ban, now we have a bio-cup which is more like your coffee cup material,” she said. “I think the idea is heading in the right direction and hopefully our children will be living in a better world,” she said. Ms Wilson said it cost the business to throw out old stock but would not inflate coffee prices. Jaffle Shack owner Christian Watters said the business had not used plastic for more than 10 years as an incentive to move people away from single-use products. “We’ve always encouraged our customers to use reusable cups by offering a discount,” he said.