With a plastic-free Christmas being the aim this year, ESIROM Foundation will supporting the cause with the launch of a first-time initiative dubbed #BYO Cup with a selection of impressive cafes across Jamaica.

BYO (Bring Your Own) Cup is the company’s sustainable initiative for this year’s 2022 Christmas.

The idea stemmed from the foundation’s main aim of generating opportunities around sustainable development and an overall aim to push less plastic usage and encourage more resealable containers.

“The act of having a reusable cup started growing over the last two years and so this is really a great way of continuing it while also effectively reducing our plastic usage,” said ESIROM’s newly appointed sustainability coordinator, Khalia Hall.

“The initiative officially kicks off on December 1st and will last for an entire month.”

HOW DOES BYO CUP WORK?

Customers who purchase from the list of participating restaurants will get a 10 per cent discount off each beverage purchase, once they’ve brought their own (reusable) cup.

• The confirmed cafes participating so far are:
• Cannonball Cafe
• Lemongrass Tea Room
• Cafe Dolce
• Raggamuffin Coffee Bar
• JACANA Cafe
• Starbucks
• Cafe Blue
• Rituals Coffee House

Commenting on the partnership, Raggamuffin’s Andrew Nam said: “We want to help build awareness in Jamaica about the harm of single-use plastic waste, and how it damages our beautiful island. We strongly value sustainability and so will support this BYO Cup initiative until we as a country can eliminate our usage of single-use plastics.”

Also joining the listing is the Hope Road location, Lemongrass Tea Room.

“We’re very happy to participate in this programme as we have a responsibility as a business to encourage our customers to reduce their consumption of single-use plastic and paper cups, especially seeing that the food and beverage industry contributes so much to the issue” said Lemongrass’s Warren Barrett.

Cafe Dolce’s Lisa Chin noted that Bring Your Own Cup means alot to the cafe team as they’ve always believed in helping the environment.

“We love that we can help bring awareness to our customers on the importance of preserving our planet and so this means a lot to the Cafe Dolce team as we believe in helping to save the environment and we can help do our part one cup at a time,” she shared.

For those who are in need of a reusable cup, a few of the listed cafes also have their own collection of cups that can be purchased.

The initiative is also endorsed by Nuh Dutty Up Jamaica!