From 1 January 2024, disposable cups will no longer be available in the Vitam coffee corners and at all coffee machines on campus Woudestein, EUC and ISS. Please bring your own reusable cup or buy one at the following locations:
| Building | Location | Name |
|---|---|---|
| Langeveld Building | Ground floor (atrium) | Vitam coffee corner Langeveld |
| Mandeville Building | 4th Floor | Vitam coffee corner Mandeville |
| Mandeville Building | 4th Floor | Restaurant Company |
| Theil Building | Ground floor (CB) | Vitam coffee corner Theil |
Frequently Asked Questions
Erasmus University has the ambition to be one of the most sustainable universities in the Netherlands. Disposable cups cause a lot of CO2 emissions and plastic waste. Moreover, from 1 January 2024, there is a legal ban on the use of disposable cups and containers containing plastic in cafés, restaurants, and offices.
You can always bring your own cup to campus. If you don’t have one, you can buy a reusable cup at the Vitam outlets described above.
Visitors who want to buy a drink on campus can use their own cup or purchase a reusable cup from one of the Vitam outlets. After use, Vitam's reusable cup can be returned to a staffed catering outlet on campus, in exchange for a token. That token can be used to obtain a clean cup at a later time. It is also possible to keep the reusable cup and take it home to reuse.
Vitam works together with the Dutch company SwapBox to clean the cups. SwapBox collects the cups with electric vehicles and takes them to one of their cleaning facilities. Here, the cups are industrially cleansed and dried in an environmentally friendly way, in a dishwasher that is 18 meters long, of which 15 meters consists of drying. The cups are tested to make sure they adhere to thorough hygiene and food safety standards. Afterwards, the cups are returned to Campus Woudestein and redistributed among the Vitam outlets.
The same procedure applies to the reusable meal boxes and cutlery from Vitam.
Catering orders are encouraged to use their own tableware. If own tableware is not used, there is the option of ordering reusable disposables. These are sturdy plastic cups that can be reused at least 100 times when machine-washed and 200 times when hand-washed.
The use of porcelain tableware and glassware in the meeting and lunch service is discouraged from a sustainability point of view. The cost of this service is therefore considerably higher. For larger events, caterer Vitam does continue to use porcelain tableware and glassware.
The disposable plates will continue to be used by Vitam, as they are made from sugar cane and do not contain plastic.
For more information, visit the factsheet page on MyEUR: factsheet on MyEUR.
The disposable cups that are already there will be used up, nothing will be thrown away.
