SUCCESS
WORDS : DAVE ROBSON
CUPS , CAMPING AND ROCK ‘ N ’ ROLL
How a Teesside firm kept revellers hydrated in a sustainable way
Reusable – Kendal Calling revellers used cups from Event Cup Solutions .
Lots of beverages are consumed at music festivals – but at one in particular , around 300,000 will have been drunk from reusable cups supplied from and washed on Teesside .
For the third year running , Middlesbrough-based Event Cup Solutions provided and cleaned the reusable cups at the Kendal Calling festival in Cumbria , which this year saw the likes of Paul Heaton , Noel Gallagher ’ s High Flying Birds , The Streets and Paolo Nutini play to packed crowds of up to 35,000 people per day .
But for Event Cup founder John Reeves and his team , there was little time to enjoy the music and soak up the atmosphere .
John explained : “ I was there managing the operational side of things with my colleague Craig Abley . We had a team of 10 people on site doing everything from working with the ‘ clean team ’ in the mornings to packing all the used cups into the crates .
Sustainable – festival-goers were encouraged to ‘ leave nothing but memories ’.
It ’ s all about encouraging people to change their behaviour at festivals so they ’ re not creating any environmental destruction .
“ We stocked the site with enough cups to see them through the first days . Then on Friday night , Saturday night and Sunday night , we had collections at 1am , the cups would be back at our Skippers Lane site in Middlesbrough by 3.30 am , they ’ d be washed at six in the morning and they would be available to go back on site by lunchtime .”
At Kendal Calling , Event Cup Solutions worked with award-winning sustainability agency betternotstop , whose “ Leave Nothing But Memories ” programme ensures the festival site is left as empty as possible once the revellers have left and the roadies have packed up the musicians ’ gear .
The cleaner the site is left , the better – and by using Event Cup ’ s services , Kendal Calling taps into one of the country ’ s most sustainable reusable drink cup models .
Over the four-day festival , more than 300,000 cups were used . And with a £ 2 levy system in place , cup loss rates continued to fall – down to less than 10 per cent compared to 17 per cent in year one .
Hannah Cox of betternotstop said : “ Event Cup Solutions made it easy to implement changes in processes at the festival to encourage a circular economy with the cup return scheme .
“ We hope to continue the relationship with them long-term . Knowing that they prioritise the environment is key to our relationship , and they have actively supported all changes we have made ,
together with improving the cup loss rate - we ’ ve loved working with them .”
John added : “ It ’ s all about encouraging people to change their behaviour at festivals so they ’ re not creating any environmental destruction .
“ What was noticeable on Monday afternoon as I was leaving and driving through the campsites was that there was nothing left behind . Normally at festivals , you see discarded tents , sleeping bags and rubbish everywhere , so it was refreshing to see .
“ We ’ ve got an agreement for another two years , so we ’ ll be doing it in 2025 and 2026 . We know the festival and we know the people .”
Business continues to boom for Event Cup Solutions , which was formed in 2019 , set up its Skippers Lane plant in 2021 , now operates four washing plants across the UK and recently delivered 1.2m cups and washed around 850,000 during the two weeks of the Wimbledon tennis championships .
More football clubs are using Event Cup too , including the likes of Birmingham City , Burnley and , imminently , West Ham United , whose London Stadium also hosts many concerts .
And after a troubled start for the Co-op Live Arena in Manchester , John hopes things will now run smoother there too – another big-name client for a real North- East success story worth raising a toast to ( in a plastic and reusable cup , of course ).
John said : “ As a business , what we did in the whole of last year , we ’ ve already hit that number in the first half of this year . So it looks like we ’ ll double this year , which is brilliant .”
Visit eventcupsolutions . com
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