Inventor turns to Blyth's Omega Plastics to revolutionise the reusable travel cup

Recently, the government proposed a 25p tax on all disposable coffee cups - similar to the 5p tax on plastic bags introduced in 2016.

A report from the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee raised the issue that, of the 2.5bn disposable cups used by UK consumers each year, less than one in 400 are recycled properly.

However, one inventor, Andrew Brooks, is aiming to change the typical disposable cup and replace it with pokito - a reusable, collapsible travel cup.

Brooks said: “It’s astonishing to think that if you stacked all of the paper cups that are thrown away each day on top of each other, they would be seven times taller than Mount Everest.

“Every day, more than seven million paper cups are thrown into British bins, 99 per cent of which end up in landfill sites instead of being recycled.

“There are a lot of reusable travel cups already on the market, but many of them are either too big, too heavy, or tend to leak, which limits their reusability. I wanted to create something which worked from a practical point of view, but that would also be sustainable to manufacture.”

The inventor is now in production with North East-based Omega Plastics, a plastics manufacturer, who he approached with the concept and design of pokito. Omega Plastics has facilities in Hartlepool, Blyth and Washington.

Gary Powner, Omega Plastics’ managing director, said: “We were absolutely delighted when Andrew approached us with the concept designs for the pokito collapsible cup.

“Working together with Andrew, we were able to provide a full turn-key solution for the pokito, successfully creating the tools needed to produce and mould all five of the components for the pokito and then supporting the project through the manufacturing process.”

Brooks came up with the idea of pokito in the summer of 2006 on a trip to Canada. He described seeing a “whole mountain stripped of its pine forest destined for the nearby paper mills”, and soon discovered that a lot of this would eventually be binned and not recycled.

This surged him to create a reusable travel cup, which can be adjusted to match the size of your drink. For example, you could drink an espresso or a grande from the same cup; it collapses to fit the desired drink. When you’re done, pokito collapses and is said to be easily storable in a pocket or bag.

It is made from food-safety thermoplastic elastomer and polypropylene, designed “with the planet and consumer in mind.”

Brooks concluded: “Making a small lifestyle change, like refilling a travel mug for your morning coffee can make a huge difference to the wellbeing of the planet.

“Although the proposed ‘latte levy’ will only go so far in the fight to save Earth, I think the mindfulness that the tax will help to promote is certainly a step in the right direction.”