Kleen Hub. In Denmark, coffee cups are to be taken and brought back

Recycling take-away packaging is not as simple as it sounds. Although they appear to be made only of paper, they have a thin layer of waterproof plastic, which makes the recycling process not only complex, but specialized. It is estimated that only one in 400 packages are recycled, with the majority ending up in landfills or on roads and beaches for decades.

For this reason, the creators of Kleen Hub have thought up a system that allows customers to take their take-away containers and cups and return them to any of the startup’s partner establishments. Through an application, customers register the package they borrow from a certain establishment and have ten days to arrange its return. Another particularity of this application is that the borrowed glass is not paid for: it is only charged if it is not returned.

According to Kleen Hub, if a cup is reused a thousand times, it saves 95% carbon emissions compared to the same number of single-use cups. This process avoids the equivalent of 40kg of CO2. Less than two years old, Kleen Hub has 4,000 users who together have saved 20,000 single-use items from ending up in the trash.

New glasses but, above all, new habits

Being aware that the solution offered by Kleen Hub will never be as convenient as throwing a glass in the trash, facilitating a change in the public’s habits is seen as crucial, and to this end Giuseppe Lanzafame would like to see the government implement measures that support this work. “We need the state to make it a little more difficult to choose single-use products. Today, it’s too cheap and too easy,” he tells Five Media.

The innovative solution offered by the startup is present in more than 150 locations throughout Denmark. We can only hope that it will be quick to spread throughout Europe and the world.