Eva Andrews/Emerald

All campus cafes run by the University of Oregon offer students a 25-cent discount for filling up with a reusable cup. The program has been around for well over 10 years, according to Director of Dining Services Tom Driscoll.

The six cafes include Amy’s Corner, Elements Ca-Fe, Lillis Café, Café Verso, Education Station and Hearth Café.

“The thought of people bringing in their mug every day would be my favorite,” Poppie Sterup, UO’s coffee outlet dining manager, said.

Driscoll said he and his team thought about increasing advertising around the discount after a group of UO students last term offered to hang up promotional signs for an experiment, and the cafe managers realized only 3% of campus coffee was sold in reusable cups last year.

“We have a lot of new people on campus every year so just continuing to get the word out every year (because) it has to be continuous education,” Driscoll said.

Driscoll said incentivizing a reusable option is part of a broader sustainability mission within UO’s food services.

“(Sustainability) is just part of being a part of the UO and being good community members. We generate a lot of food waste but we know a greener option is better,” Driscoll said.

In the past, the campus cafes have tried both selling reusable mugs and have offered thrifted mugs for students to use while enjoying their coffee in the shop, similar to the model used for returning dishware in the dining halls. According to Driscoll and Sterup, these experiments were not feasible in the long term.

“Mostly people take their coffee away and they may come back to our cafe but they may be going someplace else,” Driscoll said. “They are often in their world with their cup of coffee so what works best is if you just bring your cup and we’ll put coffee in it and then you can go along your way.”

The discount is set at 25 cents partly because of the cost of buying and shipping the cups, but it is also marked up to try to incentivize waste reduction.

“We are receiving this thing on a truck, you are using it once and it gets on another truck and it’s going to a landfill,” Driscoll said. “I mean you just think of it and it’s mind boggling.”