Walking through the halls to your first period class, there is the usual sight of students gripping their daily caffeinated beverage of choice. If not in a student’s hand, the leftover cups are probably littered around the school or mindlessly thrown in a nearby trash can, adding to Westport’s growing waste problem. 

However, things are changing; to alleviate the negative environmental impacts of the use of disposable cups, Sustainable Westport has launched Refill Not Landfill – a program that encourages the use of reusable coffee mugs. 

The program, run by Westport resident Emily Guttman, under the leadership of Sustainable Westport co-directors Gately Ross and Johanna Martell, officially launched in Westport on Jan. 15, 2023. The program works by having residents bring in a reusable cup to one of the participating local cafes. There, they select a beverage such as a coffee, tea, matcha, etc., to be served in their reusable cup. At checkout, customers scan a QR code where they fill out their name and email address to receive credit. After achieving five credits within the month from any of the locations, the resident is entered into a monthly raffle with the chance to win a prize from a local business. 

“We are getting awesome raffle donations from local businesses,” Guttman said. “The first month’s prize which [closed Feb. 15] will be $100 to Don Memos. We have a massage from Dharma Massage coming. I think there’s a jewelry donation. But local businesses are excited to support us and hopefully we can get them new clients as well.”

The idea for Refill Not Landfill stemmed from a similar program that started in Middletown, Connecticut. When Guttman first heard about it she was a relatively new resident to Westport but wanted to find a way to help the Sustainable Westport organization. The idea seemed like the perfect way to get involved as well as a better approach to mitigate the waste problem in Westport, in comparison to composting initiatives that were previously proposed.

”As much as I would love to be able to talk restaurants into buying more carefully and redistributing their scraps and composting, a lot of them do it already,” Guttman said. “I think the ones that are most inclined to do it already do it, so this just seemed like an easier foot in the door, per say, to make a difference in the food industry in Westport.”

A misconception about the widely used disposable paper cup is that they are recyclable. While they may be made of mostly paper, most are also wrapped in a plastic lining in order to prevent leaks. Unfortunately, this makes them unrecyclable and are thus forced to be sent to a landfill. According to Earth Day, an Environmental Conservation Organization, this adds to a total of 50 million coffee cups thrown away to landfills in the United States each year.

“If you think about 10 years ago how many people carried around a reusable water bottle vs. now, […] I mean the hydro flask was like the item for how long and now it’s just second hand habits for us,” Co-director Gately Ross said. “So it’s about changing habits and thinking about making changes and sometimes it’s a little uncomfortable at first, but I think it’s quintessential for not just this net zero goal but for what our planet’s going to look like.”

Leading up to, and even after the initial launch of the program, local cafes were eager to participate in the initiative of reducing single-use plastic and getting the Refill Not Landfill program in their stores. The participating locations include Bubble & Brew, Donut Crazy, Green & Tonic (Westport), Kneads Bakery, Mrs. London’s Bakery & Cafè, Old Mill Grocery, Shearwater Coffee Bar (Westport), Steam Coffee and Tea, Studio Cafe, The Granola Bar (Westport), The Porch at Christie’s, Westport Library Cafe, Westport Playhouse and Winfield Street Coffee.