Meet Greg Hewitt, founder of Sheffield Action on Plastic

One man on a mission to have the markets and events in Sheffield use reusable cups

Our friend Liz Buchanan met with Greg Hewitt, who is a local friendly environmental organiser and campaigner, with a mission to have the markets and events in Sheffield use reusable cups.

After university (Digital Media, Portsmouth) I went looking for work experience. I found a web-development opportunity with an environmental charity and as soon as I started, they were like, 'Come and get involved.' We went to a film screening about The Great Garbage Patch, which is a big pile of plastic swirling around in the ocean. I couldn't believe it. It's not something they taught us about at school or at uni.

Seeing that was the start of my environmentalist journey. The more you learn about what's happening to our world, the more you want to start doing something about it. In 2010 I ran an environmental group and then in 2015 I started to campaign against fracking in Nottinghamshire. When the government announced a moratorium on fracking I was like, 'What shall I do now?'

That's when the plastics stuff started for me again. I found a campaign called Plastic-free Communities, which is run by a charity called Surfers against Sewage. I'm not a surfer, but anyone can volunteer. I helped to found Plastic-Free Chesterfield, because that's where I was living.

To win the plastic-free communities Award, we had to show that certain steps were being taken in the community towards reducing single-use plastic. The idea was to engage businesses, community groups, charities and schools. We started work in June 2019 and got the award in May 2021, so it took just under two years – which is about average. It was a great achievement during Covid though.

In December 2021, I got a job at Sheffield University, as a student engagement and development co-ordinator. As soon as I moved here, I was like, 'I want to get involved in running something.' I started looking at Sheffield's population. Nearly eight hundred thousand people. I was like, 'I'll concentrate on the central hundred and ten thousand.' This central area includes some of London Road, Abbeydale Road and some of Kelham. It represents a huge part of what's going on across Sheffield.

I started putting the word out that we'd set up a new campaign group. But people didn't engage. A lot of time had gone by since the David Attenborough's Blue Planet back in 2017. After Covid, businesses had enough on their minds just trying to stay afloat. We were doing a lot of e-mail and I was kind of like, 'I'm not stirring up any response here.'

Being new to Sheffield, I started going to lots of events. I found the markets, Quayside, Nether Edge, Sharrow Vale and I was like, 'there's lots of plastic disposables!' This became the new focus: I did some research about cups. Pint cups, coffee cups. I started looking at what the alternatives were. What about reusable cups?

There was potential council funding for trialling plastic reusable cups. I spoke to a coffee trader who was willing to work with us and put in a bid. It took months. The council took a long time to review the application. By the time they had, our original coffee trader was leaving Sheffield. I found out who was replacing them, but the cups we'd had made were too tall for that company's coffee machine! It was very frustrating. We ended up having to give the money back.

At that point I got a message on Twitter from a Sheffield company called Loadhog who said 'We would love to support you!' They bought us six-hundred pint cups. There are usually two hundred max at a market, so that's plenty. It took a couple of months; we had to get the design right and the wording. That was in February and March of this year.

The first market we went to, didn't have a system in place to support us. It made sense for companies to use our cups and give me a pound for any not returned. But the problem was that they didn't solely use our cups. They gave users the choice: Do you want this one for a pound and then you have to bring it back, or do you want a disposable one? So people still chose the disposable ones. At one huge, bustling market, they only used fourteen of our cups. Only eight were brought back. It was a mess.

I was like, right. We'll just try and run this ourselves. We went to a different market, who put us next to a beer company so that we could set them up with cups. This presented a logistical problem again because we weren't serving the drinks but they didn't want to handle the deposits. We kept saying 'when someone comes up to the bar, can you say 'Do you want it in a reusable cup?' Eventually, we just started to talking directly to people in the line.

There were only a small handful of people who used the service that day, but we only had one cup that was not brought back. And people were like, thank you for doing that. I'm fed up of getting my drink in a disposable cup.

The ambition at the moment is to get our cups out to Sheffield markets and events. We want to look at other cups as well. Quayside market have already asked where our half-pint cups are. I was like, would any business want to sponsor wine goblets..... and right away, a company called Swag-Box replied and they were like 'let's do it...'

We're looking at coffee cups. Coffee cups have always been on the agenda because you see bins loaded with them. Circular & Co – based in Cornwall - making re-usable coffee cups. We were like, 'We're organising an event, we want to promote your cups.' They couldn't be at our event, but they sent us two hundred cups. That was fantastic.

Often, it's the washing of the cups that's going to be really difficult. I started looking at this, contacting all the people who use reusable cups in Sheffield. I asked the arena what they do, thinking maybe they'd got a special dishwasher, but apparently they hire them in from a cup-hire business. A big truck arrives in the area, collects the dirties, gives them new ones and takes them off to be washed. There's the carbon footprint, and they can't guarantee a fast turnaround for markets.

One group I know put their cups through a standard dish-washer. One idea is that the Council could give us a space somewhere central for our own dishwasher. After all, there are fewer cups for them to dispose of. We've got meetings coming up about that.

Another barrier has been that we had to work with cash. Plastic Free Sheffield was technically a subgroup of Surfer's Against Sewage, so we couldn't have a bank account. People don't carry cash around now. So we've started a new group called Sheffield Action on Plastic. Which means that we have a bank account, and a card machine.

We need to keep finding solutions. We can't keep producing disposable plastic. We can't keep running events in Sheffield that use plastic disposable cups. In the UK at the moment we have a plastic packaging tax, so in the long-term it's definitely going to be cheaper to re-use. I'd love to see Sheffield Council say, 'at all events in Sheffield, there will be no single use plastics.' Walkley Festival used re-useables this year. They didn't offer a choice. They had about three hundred reusable cups, which is incredible.

Thanks Liz, for giving us this insight - it’s inspiring to hear how Greg has seen a big problem, asked himself ‘what can I do?’ and gotten to work. He didn’t ask for permission, or expect a salary to do it as a job… he simply took it upon himself to sacrifice his time, energy and creativity to reach out for help in solving the problem. Anyone interested in getting involved with the group can fill out a volunteer form on their website : Sheffield Action on Plastic, or email sheffieldplasticfree@gmail.com

If you find that you care deeply about something, why not reach out in our Love Sheffield Volunteering group for like minded friends and see what you can do together?

If you know an inspiring and creative Sheffielder you’d like to hear in conversation, please introduce us to them, we hope to bring many new stories to you in future editions.