Lowanna Ruth, Coffee for Climate Founder, Bellingen

Lowanna Ruth runs Kombu Wholefoods in Bellingen, northern NSW, which turned 20 this year - she and her husband Kevin opened it in 2004. Lowanna has a long history of environmental activism including riding her bike from London to Sydney to raise awareness of global warning when she decided to move back home after living overseas. Since settling in Bellingen where they are raising their four children, their business offers ongoing support to environmental and social justice campaigns.

In June 2022, on World Refill Day, Lowanna kick-started a new hyper-local environmental campaign. Coffee for Climate is a community-led initiative with the ambitious aim of phasing out single-use coffee cups town-wide. Lowanna approached local cafes and coffee vendors with her idea: to design a collaborative system that would support them to offer customers other options so they could ditch the disposables, with the vision Bellingen could be the first town in Australia to have zero disposable cups.

Even the Coffee for Climate logo design was collaborative, with Lowanna’s daughter Sky creating the first draft, finalised by Bellingen Gelato Bar’s owner Danny Sebes who happens to have graphic design skills.

From Lowanna’s perspective it’s not just about the non-resuable paper cups going to landfill but about the emissions involved in producing them in the first place. To make a take-away coffee cup is a complex process of manufacture and global distribution; every stage of the process dependent on fossil fuel. This is climate action - with every cup. Though single-use coffee cups haven’t completely disappeared from the village, there’s been a huge reduction, with customers bringing their own cups or borrowing from the mug library.

Lowanna talks about the challenges of creating systems that worked in the short and longterm for the different small businesses who took on her call for action.

What inspired Coffee for Climate?
It was the severe flooding in nearby Lismore in 2022, the water levels were terrifying. I've been a long-term climate activist but when that happened I felt so rattled: extreme weather's here right now. It's not a future threat, it's literally on our doorstep. After experiencing climate grief, I chose to channel my anxiety into something hopeful and productive. We live in paradise here in Bellingen. With our privileged lifestyle – clean air, clean water – we should be to able to do more on a daily basis. Ditching the disposable seemed like a super-easy climate action that said, ‘Hey, we care and we want to do our bit for the planet.’

How did you get cafes on board initially?
Being the co-owner of Kombu was helpful - at least I was a fellow business owner, not a complete unknown. Not that it made it easy because essentially, I'm walking into fellow small businesses and asking them to change the way they do business. That’s huge. And who am I in this capitalist competitive society we live in, to walk in and say, ‘Hey, you need to get some totally different cups. They don't look at all chic, they don't match your decor. And here are a few posters I've made to help educate the customers for you to display in your shop.’

It's a big ask, and I know exactly how hard it is to run a small business, owning one myself for the past two decades.

How did you design the system for local cafe owners?
I had heard of mug libraries, but I thought you'd just go to Charity Shops and buy $1 mugs, or you'd get people to clean out their kitchen cupboards of unwanted mugs. I discovered Charity Shops have a supply and demand problem. Few people will go into an op shop and go, ‘Oh, I'm going to get those seven mugs, they're all totally different, that'll look great in my kitchen.’ Most people go to Big W and buy a set of 12 that match.

I was also reminded of the ongoing source of mugs from deceased estates. When there is a death in the family, the kitchen cupboard is well stocked with mugs but the relatives already have their own. This contributes significantly to the oversupply of second-hand cups.

So I found out that charity shops were disposing of perfectly good coffee cups with boxes of unsold mugs sent to landfill each month. So this is the most exciting part of the campaign for me. We are rescuing a product in perfect condition that was going to landfill and re-purposing it. It's the new disposable takeaway cup in Bellingen, we don't have to be precious about it because it would have been disposed of anyway. Now it has an extended lifespan in the Mug Library.

If charity shops are sending surplus mugs to landfill in our region this might be the reality elsewhere. Our circular economy Mug Library could be applicable across Australia.

Did local charity shops start supplying them to you?
Yes. I don't want to steal a sale from them so I always say if you've got a gorgeous mug that someone will buy, don't give me that, but please don't throw anything in landfill. I want every B-grade cup you're getting rid of. The generous volunteers who work in those shops are grateful as they are uncomfortable throwing anything away. I cannot believe how many boxes of mugs have been donated from a handful of local op shops.

How were the mug libraries designed for each place?
Every cafe would apply their creativity slightly differently. For example, Hearthfire Bakery and the Gelato Bar were happy to have a basket out the front of the shop where customers can drop off their used mugs the next day or next week or whenever they remember to bring it back. Other cafes don't like the look of a basket out the front so I've had to be as flexible as possible and accommodating to people's needs.

For instance, people can walk in and hand the mugs straight to one of the cafe staff inside instead of putting it in a basket out the front. But we did some quick on-the-spot market research and found a lot of people feel awkward and a bit embarrassed about walking in and saying ‘Here, wash up my dirty cup.’ We found some people prefer to quietly pop it in a drop-off basket. Each mug library is working in its different forms, none of the cafes have gone back to disposables. After several months of phasing out the last of their single-use cups, Hearthfire Bakery, 5 Church Street, Gelato Bar and Liberty Providores are now 100% REUSE, you can either dine in or grab a mug for go. Hearthfire owner Dave said he's busier than he's ever been, he re-orders more coffee beans each week than before.

How does the library work?
There's a mug library depot attached to our health food store. The baristas from the different cafes come to the depot with a basket whenever they've run out of mugs. They just open the door and there's shelves full of mugs. They fill their basket and put the cups through their commercial dishwasher at the cafe before restocking their mug library. My job is making sure the depot is topped up with enough mugs, which means regular liaison with the charity shops, and volunteers to either drop the cups to the depot or drivers to collect.

Has the Coffee for Climate system design changed since it began?
It evolved over time as information came in, listening to the needs of cafe owners, and looking at what's happening elsewhere through social media. It has been a community effort.

But it took a lot of personal energy to drive that system to succeed?
I guess it might not have happened without an agitator like me to walk around the village and say, ‘Hey, we're in a climate crisis. We can do this differently.’ But financially it’s so advantageous! I emphasised to cafe owners, you've been through a tough time with the pandemic and now we're all in global price crisis. The environmental impact of reducing cups was important to me, but as a fellow business owner I also saw the potential benefit to my neighbours of increasing annual profit by eliminating the significant cost of purchasing disposable cups and lids. I felt Coffee For Climate could strengthen the resilience of our local economy.

How many cafes are participating?
We are delighted to be collaborating with about 10 cafes across the region, all sharing the collective mug library. Wonderfully, four cafes are now 100% reuse-only and the others give customers the choice of the mug library or single-use cup. Interestingly, it’s working best at the 100% cafes. People are creatures of habit - when there’s choice they’ll opt for the disposable because it’s familiar and conventional. However, there are few customers who’ll walk away from a delicious freshly-made coffee if their only option is a mug.

Has anybody else been inspired by Coffee for Climate?
Lazy Daisy at Bonville Nursery is our first café in the Coffs Harbour region to make contact. They heard about what we were doing and wanted to have a mug library as well as disposable cups. Likewise, Driftwood at Crescent Head got in touch and said, ‘Hey, we love what you're doing, we don't want to have disposables.’ I gave the owner all the posters and coached her in what all we’d learnt along the way. They used used up the last of their throwaways and now they’re 100% REUSE too. They’re not dependent on our mug depot, as they’re sourcing their own locally. They simply needed a little bit of mentorship to get going.

If you would like to continue this Good Natured conversation and do your own bit for sustainability, you can get in touch with Lowanna via Coffee for Climate’s Instagram, or email action@coffeeforclimate.earth.