A Pilot to Promote Re-Usable Cups at Cafes

The Cinecenta Edition Pilot Timeline: Fall 2025 to Spring 2026

What motivates a consumer towards ordering drinks in re-usable cups?

While The Munchie Bar at the Cinecenta offers ceramic mugs as a re-usable option, the choice for cold (and most hot) beverages appears to be single-use cups.

Cinecenta is a 300-seat theatre operated by the Students’ Society of the University of Victoria, British Columbia

Munchie Bar patrons that sign up for Project Zero (“study participants”) will each be offered a personal re-usable beverage container (“Project Zero cup”) that it is appropriate for their preferred beverage of choice at the Cinecenta, with the intent that they utilize that or another re-usable cup for their Cinecenta beverage purchases during the pilot (October - December 2025). The Munchie Bar point-of-sale system will track purchases made using the Project Zero cup by scanning a code available to the patron and/or on the cup itself (when it is presented). In addition to receiving the Project Zero cup to use for the pilot and keep afterwards, study participants may be offered other incentives such as tickets to the Cinecenta as a benefit for participating. Study participants may use the Project Zero cup to purchase beverages at establishments other than the Cinecenta. Project Zero’s impact will be measured using metrics discussed below.

We hope to increase study participants’ propensity to adopt re-usable cups as a default for beverage purchases post-pilot, and in doing so, reduce waste and learn how effective incentives offered in the pilot were in switching to re-usable cups.

  • Waste Reduction: % change in beverage sales in single-use cups (relative to same time prior year)

  • Incentive efficacy: % of participants who report multiple purchases using re-usable beverage container offered under Project Zero

  • Habit formation: % of participants who report utilizing re-usable cups away from the Cinecenta