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Project Happy Turtle

We aim to eliminate single-use plastic by 2020.

We care and we know you do too. Single-use plastic causes a massive impact on our environment, particularly marine animals, so we were curious to see what we could do to help eliminate it.

We know you love Chatime’s tea creations and want to continue to enjoy its great taste and quality. That’s why we’re working on real solutions that you can feel good about and don’t impact on your enjoyment.

We love having fun and being a little cheeky but we’re serious about this. We want to drive real change not just in our business but across the community. We want to use our influence to help eliminate single-use plastic.

That is why we’ve launched Project Happy Turtle, Chatime Australia’s aim to eliminate single-use plastic by 2020.

Project Happy Turtle will see us trial new products and solutions we hope will help us to eliminate single-use plastic by 2020.

This includes all the straws, cups, lids, cup seals and bags used in more than 120 T-breweries across Australia.

SO WHAT ARE WE DOING?

Eliminating Plastic Straws

We’ve worked with industry leaders to develop what we believe is the best paper straw available.

More about our straws

Replacing Plastic Cups

We’re trying two options – a reusable one and a disposable one made of bioplastic.

View our Reusable Cup

What Is Bioplastic?

Bioplastic looks a lot like plastic. But it’s made from plants, rather than fossil fuels like oil.

More about Bioplastic

 

Eliminating plastic straws

From October 2019 all our T-breweries nationally will trial a super duper new paper alternative. We know some paper straws don’t last the distance of a full drink, but rest assured our lux 4-ply paper straws will get you all the way. We’ve tested enough to know for sure, and we’ve got the caffeine buzz to prove it.

They’re also made with FSC® certified paper from managed plantations. We’re pretty sure you’ll love them as much as we do but initially, at least, customers will have a choice of the old plastic one and the new paper alternative. If the trial goes well, we expect to transition permanently to paper.

Now you can take positive action with every sip!

 

What is Bioplastic?

Bioplastic looks a lot like plastic. But as the name suggests, it’s made from plants, rather than fossil fuels like oil. We’ve started using Biopak compostable cups and lids in our UTS and Murdoch T-breweries. We’ll then roll them out in a 10-store trial early in 2020. After that we hope to supply them in all our T-breweries across the country. Enjoy our freshly brewed tea on the go with a disposable cup that isn’t made of plastics.

We are sourcing our bioplastic cups from a company call Biopak. The cups are certified under the Australian Government’s National Carbon Offset Standard as being carbon neutral, meaning their production has no net impact on the climate. That’s a great thing.

The cups are compostable, meaning they can breakdown and not contribute to landfill. At the moment the only cups available are only compostable in industrial compost facilities. That’s not perfect but we’re teaming up with a contractor to collect used cups from our T-breweries and send them away to be composted. Unfortunately, only some households have Council compost collection that enable you to compost the cups from your home. But we hope that by leading the way we will increase demand for compost facilities for these types of products and help create a more sustainable community.

 

…and plastic bags?

We’ve already massively reduced the amount of single-use plastic bags used in our T-breweries simply by not offering them to customers – well done on that! We know many of you want to buy more than one Chatime for your friends and family so we’ll have 2-cup cardboard holders you can use.

Our plan to eliminate single-use plastic by 2020

September 2019

UTS T-brewery: Introduce paper straws and compostable cups

October 2019

Murdoch T-brewery: Introduce paper straws and compostable cups

National paper straw trial in all 125 locations

Offer a reusable cup in all 125 T-breweries nationally

January 2020

Rollout paper straws nationally

February 2020

Ten-store trial of compostable cups for hot beverages and in-store collection of used cups for composting

The rest of 2020

The pandemic may have hit but we’re still powering on with what can we do!

Launching 2-cup cardboard holders nationally – soon!

GET INVOLVED
JOIN THE PLASTIC FREE CHA-LLENGE

We’re excited about Project Happy Turtle and hope you are too.

It’s a bold ambition and we know it is going to be tough. That we’re going to have setbacks and make mistakes.

To make it a success we need you to help us. We need your feedback. The more feedback we get the sooner we’ll get this right. We’re also interested in your ideas, so if you think of something better we could do – let us know. Feel free to share your feedback and thoughts on social media or contact us here. We’re happy to get other people engaged in the discussion.

And help share what we’re doing – the more people who get involved, the sooner we can eliminate single-use plastic and encourage others to do the same.