Fifty coffee shops have joined a two-month campaign initiated by the Royal University of Phnom Penh’s (RUPP) Department of Media and Communication (DMC) to reduce the use of plastic in daily lives.

A group of 25 students from the DMC launched the campaign, which runs from November 22 to January 20 to encourage consumers to bring their own water bottles or travel mugs to participating cafes when buying coffee or other beverages to receive a reward in the form of a 10-50 per cent discount.

Sao Dalen, a fourth-year DMC student, told The Post on December 21 that the campaign had yielded good results over the first month with a growing number of participants, mostly RUPP students.

“So far, more than 50 coffee shops have signed up with us and are offering discounts to customers who bring their own bottles or mugs when they buy coffee and beverages,” she said.

Dalen said her team expects that the campaign will spread widely along with its message of reducing the use of plastic to help improve and clean up the environment

Ministry of Environment spokesman Neth Pheaktra commended the students for their campaign, which he said was in line with existing government policy and showed a lot of creativity, initiative and community spirit by the organisers, participants and shops.

“The problem of plastics is a common concern all over the world and it will require creative solutions. Reducing the use of plastics and cleaning up plastic pollution are steps individuals can take to help out,” he said.

He added that from the 1950’s through 2020, about 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic waste have been produced on Earth, with over 400 million tonnes produced annually in recent times. He said that by 2025, plastic production is expected to rise to 600 million tonnes per year.

Pheaktra said more than four million tonnes of waste is produced in Cambodia per year and about 20 per cent of that is plastic.

Citing a recent study, he said an individual city dweller uses more than 2,000 plastic bags per year. Across the country, the volume of rubbish increases by about 15 per cent each year due to population and economic growth which encourages consumerism and the use of disposable packaging made from plastics.