Reduce. Reuse. Grow. is an American company that has come forth with a brilliant idea to help grow new vegetation in areas that sorely need it. The seeded coffee cup is a simple beverage container made from fibres sourced from recycling centres that would typically be too rough to turn back into a packaging product. This material is mixed with plant seeds before being turned into an ordinary coffee cup, suitable for sale. Customers then have the option of throwing away the cup as normal or planting it in areas where vegetation is needed. The plantable coffee cup is compost certified and breaks down within 180 days, acting as a source of nutrients for other plants.

The plantable coffee cup project was successfully crowd-funded recently, meaning that Californian residents will soon be able to purchase the cups from their favourite coffee haunts. Over 146 billion coffee cups are discarded in America annually and Reduce. Reuse. Grow claims that the cup will help extract over 1 tonne of C02 in the same period. Hopefully other companies follow this example and we see some similar designs arrive in Australia.