There’s no planet B so Boston Tea Party drives forward with A2B

Did you know that only 0.25% of the estimated 2.5 billion plastic coated coffee cups used in the UK each year are recycled with 4%, that’s approximately 500,000, being littered every day. The rest, 95.75% go to landfill. These plastics are then burnt releasing dangerous substances such as heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants and other toxic chemicals into the air. These chemicals have been linked to the development of asthma and cancer.

Boston Tea Party looked at the reality of this situation and realised there was only one way forward that would really make a difference. To stop issuing single-use coffee cups altogether.

Similarly, A2B Radio Cars are very conscious of the fact that air pollutants emitted from petrol and diesel vehicles are also believed to cause cancer and contribute to problems such as asthma, heart disease and eye irritation. With the private hire company completing 2.4 million rides each year, the realisation, became more prominent that driver-partners engaging with the business would need to be educated as to the benefits of eco-friendly vehicles, to reduce the business environmental impact.

From this point Boston Tea Party, Solihull, and A2B Radio Cars formed a relationship created around their business goals to ‘Make Things Better’.

Lee Barton, A2B Radio Cars General Manager, said: “We are delighted to have teamed up with a likeminded business, with the common goal being to protect the environment, driven by our ethical values. A2B is one of Birmingham and Solihull’s largest taxi company’s and has more than 700 driver-partners operating in the West Midlands. We want to ensure our environmental impact is reduced, whilst keeping the people of Solihull and Birmingham moving.”

Mark Kerby, General Manager of Boston Tea Party, Solihull, said: “As we grow we are determined to get better in partnering with other local businesses who share our goal, refusing to accept that we have to compromise our values, the stuff that really matters to us, as we expand.

“All of this we do because we want to be the epic soulful café chain we think the world needs, aiming to recycle all our waste by the end of 2020.”

In 2017, Boston Tea Party stopped using plastic straws and plastic bottles and have since always done what they can to reduce, reuse and recycle. However, the elephant in the room was still the vast amount of single use coffee cups which left their cafes, only to be disposed of in bins or, at worse, onto the ground.

But now, when you drop by at the café for a hot takeaway drink, you can either, bring your own cup, buy a reusable ecoffee biodegradable cup or even loan a ecoffee cup which you can drop back at any other Boston Tea Party Café. Unlike other brands, Boston Tea party sell their eco cup at cost price and you get a free drink with each purchase too!There are no nonrecyclable plastics in sight.

Mark Kerby, adds: ‘We’re proud to be the first and we want others to join us. With your help, this can be a movement. We hope to grow our new relationship with A2B throughout our Birmingham chains and beyond. We want to remain a café to be discovered, recommended and returned to.”

To celebrate this new relationship, A2B driver-partners of eco-friendly vehicles have been gifted a complimentary Boston ecoffee cup and café discount vouchers for their passengers. Asim Amjad, A2B Driver-Partner said, ‘I buy 2-3 coffees a day, by using this reusable cup will save on average at least 10 cups from landfill each week. Plus my customers will love this discount’.

A2B Radio Cars is owned by Veezu, the leading private hire operator in the UK. Its 3,500 driver partners complete 12.6 million passenger journeys per year. 1 in every 4 vehicles on A2B’s fleet are now environmentally friendly, a figure the business will only push to grow.

Lee Barton continues: “Being part of a dynamic, forward-thinking company like Veezu has many advantages. The passenger and journey experiences are continually improving thanks to significant and continuous investment in technology but also the scale of the business also creates opportunity to put the business’s hubs at the heart of more communities.”