Sheffield Action on Plastic have been in dialogue with Sheffield Food Festival’s Alex and Naomi from Swan Events for a few years. When we met, Alex and Naomi expressed an interest to embed sustainability into the Sheffield Food Festival.

The first year, 2024, Sheffield Action on Plastic didn’t have enough reusable cups and no deposit return system was in place. By the time the second year came around, Sheffield Action on Plastic had formed a great connection with Derby-based, Circulayo, who are a technology company aiming to reduce single-use plastics.

As part of Sheffield Action on Plastic’s Reusable Revolution campaign, Greg (Chair) reached out to Alex and Naomi again, this time explaining the new partnership with Circulayo. From there, Alex arranged a meeting with Andy from Circulayo. Circulayo had the technology and reusable cups in order to meet Swan Events’ sustainability ambitions.

And at the end of May 2025, Sheffield Food Festival 2025, Sheffield Action on Plastic and Circulayo made it happen – getting a major Sheffield city centre event to solely use reusable cups!

Unfortunately the Deposit Return Scheme that Swan Events wanted wasn’t able to be set up time, however the event still achieved a 90% return rate for reusable cups – which is amazing. This proves that the public got behind the concept of using reusable cups and were keen to return them to be washed and reused again.

Sheffield Food Festival 2025 has set the standard for future Sheffield events to adopt reusable cups and power Sheffield’s Reusable Revolution.

We now call on all Sheffield event organisers to adopt reusable cups at their events.

• Reduce single-use plastic
• Reduce the possibility of plastic pollution and disposable plastic getting into Sheffield’s beautiful green and nature spaces
• Avoid having to collect and separate out waste, and pay for it to be taken away
• Avoid having to purchase single-use disposable cups

Sheffield Action on Plastic would like to thank Cole from FOF Creative for taking the videos, as well as supporting our volunteer, Islay, in taking photographs at the event