As a conservation organisation committed to continually improving our sustainability practices, we are excited to share that Single Use Cups (SUCs) will be going for good from all our Auckland Zoo café outlets by the end of this year.

Our gradual phase out over the coming months will see SUCs removed from our dine-in cafes - Te Puna and Wētāpunga by 30 April, and from our takeaway outlets later this year.

But you can join us right now and help wildlife, our planet, and your fellow humans by bringing your own reusable cup from home (ka pai if you already do!) and enjoy a discount on your hot drink. You can also choose to chill out at one of our seated cafes and use our dine-in cups.

“Making long-life reusable cups our ‘go-to’ saves on the use of precious natural resources and reduces waste going to landfill - reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change,” says Auckland Zoo’s Environmental Initiatives Advisor, Claudine Gibson.

“Depending on the material it’s made from, a reusable cup can last up to 10 years and save on using an estimated 1,000 – 2,500 SUCs, or even more if we’re drinking multiple takeaway coffees a day! Here at the Zoo (where we welcome over 850,000 visitors each year) their total removal will prevent more than 170,300 SUCs from going to landfill each year. That’s equal to filling more than 1,000 of the 120L Auckland Council general waste wheelie bins you have at home!”

Our journey to reduce waste is ongoing

Auckland Zoo’s journey to replace single use cups with a sustainable alternative, dates back over five years. During this time, we’ve encountered their many challenges - including that for a complexity of multiple reasons ‘commercially compostable’ labelled SUCs are not readily compostable in New Zealand.

In our initial efforts, the Zoo became an early adopter of a reusable loan cup system. In 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we made the call to remove these cups as a precautionary approach to minimise any health risks and took the opportunity to review their performance. We identified a number of challenges, both for visitors and café staff, and in weighing up all the pros and cons decided not to reintroduce this system while continuing to work on a solution.

“We’re really delighted to be re-joining other great communities and organisations across Aotearoa who are actively championing the move to a more sustainable café culture,” says Claudine.

As a Toitū net carbonzero certified organisation, Auckland Zoo already diverts 85% of its total waste away from landfill each year, has multiple recycling and green waste streams, and hand-sorts waste on site to ensure correct processing but is always working to do better.

We recognise that the vitality of wildlife, wild places, natural resources, and people are all intrinsically connected, and are dedicated to achieving best environmental management practices across our Zoo operations and putting our best (and lowest carbon) foot forward.

“As well as eliminating SUCs for hot drinks – a priority given we use these the most, we have already eliminated a significant amount of single use food packaging and continue to work on finding sustainable solutions for the remainder of our cabinet food packaging. In addition, we’re working hard to find an alternative solution to the single use cups we use for cold drinks and look forward to sharing updates on our progress.”

https://cdn.aucklandunlimited.com/zoo/assets/media/az-coffee-cups-240225-12.jpg

Auckland Zoo Reusable Cups feature an etching of a Ruru (Morepork)

Did you know?

  • New Zealanders use over 295 million single use cups every year! That’s equal to over one million, seven hundred and thirty-five thousand (1,735,000) 120L Auckland Council wheelie bins!
  • Depending on the material it’s made from, a long-life reusable cup can last up to 10 years and save on using an estimated 1,000 – 2,500 SUCs, or even more if having multiple takeaway hot drinks a day.
  • Once achieved, eliminating Single Use Cups (SUCs) for hot drinks at Auckland Zoo will prevent over 170,300 SUCs going to landfill each year. That’s equal to filling more than 1,000 of the 120L Auckland Council general waste wheelie bins you have at home!
  • Auckland Zoo has been a Toitū net carbonzero certified organisation since 2016, and currently diverts 85% of its waste away from landfill each year but is constantly working to better this.

FAQs

  • All SUCs used for hot drinks will be removed from Auckland Zoo by the end of 2025.
  • We removed SUCs from our Old Elephant House Restaurant at the end of 2024.
  • Next up: SUCs from our dine-in cafés, Te Puna and Wētāpunga, will be removed by 30 April 2025.
  • We are currently working on solutions to remove SUCs from our outdoor takeaway outlets by December 2025 – to meet our goal of being SUC-free by the end of this year!

Both general Zoo visitors and Annual Pass Members using reusable cups will receive a 30-cent discount.As a member, you will of course also receive your membership benefit of a 10% discount on all items at our catering outlets.

Yes, the Zoo has great quality re-usable cups for sale at its Zoo Shop and at all its catering outlets. These are uniquely designed for Auckland Zoo and not available anywhere else!

Available from our Zoo Shop

Yes, like all other products at our Zoo shop and catering outlets you will receive a 10% discount (when you purchase in person).

It’s complex! The SUCs for hot drinks we have in our Zoo cafés are made from paperboard and lined with PLA (polylactic acid), with PLA lids. They were originally selected as they are labelled ‘commercially compostable’ and were able to go into our green waste stream, and away from landfill. However, as the national uptake of commercially compostable packaging increased significantly over time, the management of commercially compostable packaging also evolved, with a number of commercial composting facilities not accepting these materials. (For example, you can’t put SUCs into your Council kerbside food waste collections – they need to go into general waste). The Zoo’s own position of best practice also continues to evolve, based on the latest information available, which is why we’ve been working hard to eliminate SUCs. Our commercially compostable SUCs going to landfill isn’t the outcome we want, as this is not the right environment needed for them to break down. Eliminating them is therefore the most sustainable option.

Currently, the SUCs we use for cold drinks are made of polylactic acid PLA (the same material used for the lining and lids of our single use hot drinks cups). Like the hot drink SUCs, we originally selected them as they are labelled ‘commercially compostable’.

However, these cups have the same associated challenges as our hot drink cups, and we’ll ultimately remove them from Zoo cafés too! Hot drink cups are first up as we use more of these (170,300 each year) compared to the cold drink cups (146,000). We’re working behind the scenes to consider possible solutions for our cold drink cups.

All packaging used for our cabinet foods is currently considered commercially compostable. However, given the challenges surrounding these materials and the use of single use packaging, we’re systematically working towards replacing packaging with alternative solutions.

  • We’ve already eliminated a lot of food packaging; single use plates have been swapped for either crockery or melamine reusable plates.
  • We use stainless steel instead of single-use bamboo cutlery and have swapped out single paper sachets of sugar and salt for glass condiment jars.

In our initial efforts the Zoo did become an early adopter of a reusable loan cup system. In 2021, we made the call to remove these cups as a precautionary approach to minimise any health risks during the COVID-19 pandemic and took the opportunity to review their performance. We identified a number of challenges, including:

  • Additional time required for baristas to explain the system to customers and provide deposit refunds, impacting visitor queuing times - especially at peak periods.
  • Wear and tear of their silicone lids in our commercial dishwashers, diminishing their appearance and impacting their appeal to visitors.
  • While these stainless-steel cups were a great sustainable material, being single walled they required an additional cardboard sleeve which couldn’t be reused.

In weighing up all the pros and cons we decided not to reintroduce this system while continuing to work on a solution.