Turning the tide on plastic…one Lewes Cup at a time

Did you know that around 80,000 single-use plastic cups are saved from going into the bin every year at Lewes Bonfire thanks to the brilliant reusable ‘Lewes Cup’ scheme? So, do you know of other events and organisations where the Lewes Cup could help slash single-use plastic? If you do – here’s how to get involved.

It’s not new news that the world’s plastic addiction is wildly out of control. But sometimes a problem can feel so big as to be insurmountable, with numbers just too vast to have any real meaning. Looking at something on the hyper-local level, on the other hand, can really bring it home. So here’s a quick quiz question: in the time it’s taken for you to read this, how many single-use plastic items do you think have been chucked in the bin – solely in the town of Lewes?

Assuming it took you roughly 20 seconds to read that intro, the answer is: 13.

Unlucky for some.

Yep, every 20 seconds in Lewes, 13 single-use plastic items go in the bin. That’s 40 every minute, just in the town. Or 21 million a year.

Now before we lose all hope for civilisation, there are some small changes happening in this remarkable town that point to a different future – but they need the support of all of us.

One such initiative is the reusable cup scheme put in place by Lewes Town Council. As some of you may know, in 2023 young people in the town, working with Green United, approached the council with the request that they try to reduce plastic use at the Bonfire celebrations. Two years later, and the idea is flourishing.

All but a couple of the pubs now use the ‘Lewes Cup’ on Bonfire. All of them will refill the cups or any other reusable cup that punters bring in (provided cups have a legal mark – so no yards of ale please), with the overall result that the town is no longer swimming in cheap plastic by 11pm, and around 80,000 single-use plastic cups are saved from going in the bin every year.

And news of the scheme is spreading. Some Bonfire societies were ahead of the game and already using their own reusable cups, but those that weren’t are supporting it, and are now requesting the cups for their other events during the year, like Battle of Lewes. Schools are using them for events, the recent beer festival at the Depot had them, and they’ll be out again this year for the big Bonfire bash – about 12,000 Lewes Cups across the town.

So it’s good news, but things can always be improved – and that’s where it needs support from all of us.

What can you do to help?

We’re all part of the community of Lewes, so we need to be out there putting very gentle pressure on our contacts to start moving away from single-use plastic and over to reusable. If you’re part of a school PTA and an event is coming up, ask the question: are we using reusable cups? If not, why not? You can get them from the town hall for free, you’ll only be charged for those not returned, and if you decide to do what the pubs do at Bonfire and charge £1 for the cup, it could even raise money for the school.

If you’re part of a cricket or football team, and you run a bar, why not do what Lewes Football Club and Ringmer Cricket Club have done: buy some reusable cups and use them instead of single-use. The football club are even starting their own deposit-return scheme for the cups, a first in the town.

What about your local pub or club? If they have a special event, are they using single-use when they could be using reusable? If you see it happening, ask them why. And point out how easy it would be to move over to something more sustainable – they won’t just save money, they’ll make it. And if you do see any official Lewes Cups lying around the town, pick them up and bring them back to the town hall – let’s make it a truly circular scheme.

We’re consumers, we do have some power. Publicising this scheme will help it spread. And as Daniel Yon, director of The Uncertainty Lab at Birkbeck, University of London, points out in his book ‘A trick of the mind’: “When the familiar touchstones of our surroundings seem unstable, old ideas become dislodged and new ones can take hold.”

We certainly live in unstable times, and if ever there was an old idea, it’s single-use plastic. Together we can dislodge it. And chuck it in the bin for good.

If you’d like to get your organisation or event using Lewes Cups, contact the Town Hall at