Nik Gornall, owner of Romantica, a trio of card shops in Bristol, is helping to save the planet, one cup at a time – and has joined forces with his local traders in his quest. Nik is spearheading a campaign to encourage those visiting shops and cafes in the Gloucester Road area of the city to cut down on single use disposable cups and bottles and replace them with reusable coffee cups and water bottles.
“We all need to take responsibility for our environment whether as designer, producer, seller, buyer, retailer or customer,” Nik told PG Buzz.
Having always sold reusable coffee cups, Nik said that seeing minimising single use disposable drinkware as a tangible way of improving the environment, he has committed to a large order of bamboo-based reusable travel coffee cups which he is now promoting “in a co-ordinated campaign along with most of the independent cafes and coffee shops on the Gloucester Road in Bristol.”
Nik’s fellow café traders are “offering generous discounts on take-away drinks for people bringing their own cups in and the idea fits in well with the ethos of sustainability that is prevalent in our area of Bristol.”
The campaign also extends to promoting stainless steel and glass water bottles, whereby a donation is made to the charity WaterAid for each one sold.
Nik urges everyone in the card trade, whether publisher, retailer or trade supplier “to talk to those either side of you in the chain and make decisions for the good of the planet, not for our personal wellbeing.”
Card publisher, Blue Eyed Sun is also keen to promote reusable coffee cups and has signed a distribution deal with design-led German company Chic Mic to distribute the BambooCup, SlideCup and BambooFriends brands of lifestyle giftware in the UK.
Jeremy Corner, md of Blue Eyed Sun explained: “We have been working with Chic Mic for several years in Germany and Austria, where they distribute Blue Eyed Sun’s handmade greeting cards to hundreds of stores. Their BambooCup stand at Spring Fair was mobbed with retailers who were quick to recognise the fast growing product trend in 2018 for sustainable eco solutions to the problem of single use plastics.”
Blue Eyed Sun is now the exclusive UK and Ireland distributor for Chic Mic’s BambooCup range. Made from sustainable, fast growing bamboo, there are over 50 designs in the collection. Each cup (which is dishwasher safe, odour free and taste neutral) comes with a patented, lockable lid made from bamboo and a thermal sleeve.
Blue Eyed Sun will be showing the BambooCup range on its stand (A69) at the Farm Shop and Deli Show at NEC (16-18 April) at the NEC.
