Ohio State Dining Services has begun to roll out reusable cup sleeves on hot drinks served on campus as an optional alternative to paper sleeves in an effort to decrease waste this semester, said Abby Hertzfeld, senior director of Dining Services. Credit: Sandra Fu | Photo Editor
As of late, students might have noticed something unusual while picking up their early-morning or late-night brews at on-campus cafes: no paper sleeves.
Ohio State Dining Services has begun to roll out reusable cup sleeves as an optional alternative to paper sleeves in an effort to decrease waste this semester, though the paper sleeves are still available upon request, said Abby Hertzfeld, senior director of Dining Services.
The reusable cup sleeves cost $5 each at participating campus cafe locations. When ordering hot drinks on Grubhub, there is a section where students, faculty and staff can select what kind of sleeve they want: no sleeve, paper sleeve or reusable sleeve — the last of which would add a charge of $5 to the order.
During the 2023-24 academic year, Dining Services distributed almost 430,000 paper sleeves, Hertzfeld said. Though coffee cups at campus cafes are not recyclable, she said offering reusable sleeves is one way to “reduce landfill waste without incurring additional hardship on [the university’s] dishwashing facilities.”
Even though the cost of the paper sleeve is incurred with the cost of the cup and the lid, Hertzfeld said it seems “silly” for customers to continue to pay for the sleeves, only for them to be thrown away.
However, Hertzfeld said she doesn’t think the university will get to a point where paper sleeves will be “completely eliminated” anytime soon.
“I’m not sure we’re ready for that,” Hertzfeld said. “I’d love to get to that point, but I don’t think that’s going to happen overnight.”
Hertzfeld also said dining locations are serving coffee cups without disposable sleeves already on the cups, reflecting the eco-conscious developments occurring in off-campus coffee shops.
“It’s definitely trendy to not automatically put those sleeves on there,” Hertzfeld said.
Hertzfeld said at least 250 reusable cup sleeves have been sold at the main campus cafe locations so far.
In order for the reusable cup sleeves to be made permanently available, Hertzfeld said the university will need to see a greater demand for them.
“They’re just machine washable, so they’re really easy to take care of,” Hertzfeld said. “But yeah, I mean, everything with sustainability is really a personal choice. So, we’re just offering some additional choices to those students and staff that are interested in reducing their footprint as much as possible.”
Hertzfeld said one challenge to increasing sustainability on campus is the fact that a large amount of recycling bins are mistakenly or carelessly used as trash cans.
“It only takes a small amount of trash in the recycling bin for the facility where the recycling goes to just throw the whole thing in the trash because they’re not going to sort the trash out from the recycling once it gets to the facility,” Hertzfeld said.,
In terms of cup sleeves, Hertzfeld said most people do not dispose of the sleeves properly, leading to more waste.
“Most people don’t take them off and separate them into the right bins,” Hertzfeld said. “So, the [parts that] typically could be recycled are just getting thrown away with a cup and lid.”
Due to this issue, the university is trying to focus on reusability more than recyclability, she said.
“That’s what makes ‘reuse’ that much more important to us, because they’re at least using that product, you know, however many times that we’re not contaminating recycling bins with more trash,” Hertzfeld said.
Madison Hall, a second-year in pre-nursing, said she doesn’t think most students will be consistent with using the reusable sleeves, despite the positive impact they could have.
“I know a lot of students get on-campus coffee as well as off-campus coffee,” Hall said. “But I don’t think more than at least 10% of students will actually continuously keep using the reusable sleeves.”
Hall ultimately said students have to make a conscious choice to prioritize reusability if the new sleeves are to have a tangible, environmental impact on the campus community.
“Everyone has to do it right,” Hall said. “Everyone has to do it correctly, and we all have to care.”
