As Sheffield’s live music venues start recruiting their acts for the Tramlines Fringe Festival this year, Sheffield Action on Plastic, is calling on them to follow suit from the City Council, and ditch single-use plastic disposable cups, and instead switch to reusables.

From 1 April, Sheffield City Council has banned traders from using single-use plastic cups at their city centre events, along with contacting external events to do the same.

In the UK, some 100 million plastic cups are used annually during music festivals and live sporting events. Plastic pint cups are the sixth most commonly found plastic item in Britain’s rivers, and the eighth on the nation’s beaches. Globally 500 billion plastic cups are used each year. If lined up end-to-end these cups would span 50 million kilometres – or more than 130 trips from the Earth to the Moon. Yonder polling found 89% of Britons wanted plastic pint cups banned in a bid to protect the environment.

For every 1 million reusable event cups in regular use, 1000 tonnes of C02e emissions and 300 tonnes waste could be avoided. Organisers using reusable cups report very positive audience feedback about the reduction in litter. In addition, events can experience a ‘multiplier effect’, whereby the reduction in litter makes it feel more unacceptable to drop litter.

Sheffield Action on Plastic is calling for live music venues to adopt reusable cups for drinks.

Chair of Sheffield Action on Plastic, Greg Hewitt, said: “I’ve been in Sheffield for four years now, and each Tramlines Fringe I am horrified at the number of single-use plastic cups used by venues. The facts are clear, we cannot continue using single-use plastic cups, a Reusable Revolution is possible. We are calling on everyone to help us achieve our mission.”

A few years ago, it was the impact on the environment that single-use plastic products raised concern, however now, studies have shown that single-use plastic has the potential for adverse health impacts.

One study showed that ‘at least 1,396 food contact plastic chemicals have been found in human bodies, including several which are a known threat to human health, linked to conditions such as to cancers, infertility, neurodevelopmental disorders, and cardiovascular and metabolic diseases like obesity and type 2 diabetes’.

Reusable cups can be hired from Sheffield Action on Plastic, who work closely with Derby-based tech company, Circulayo, who can help embed a Deposit Return Scheme within the hire.

Hire our reusable cups

In 2025, Sheffield Food Festival used reusable cups. Agata from Swans Events said “We try to be as sustainable as possible. When we realised we could collaborate with Circulayo, we thought that’d be a great idea, and we want to add our element to saving the environment and pushing it within the entertainment industry. We would like to hope other events use reusable events. It’s a great initiative and as many organisations as possible should consider using reusables.”