Darrion Ong Wei Zhi (BIZ), Li Xiaoyue (FOE), Tang Yu Xuan (FOS), Woo Jian Zhe (SOC)
Academic Advisor: Ms. Sadaf Ansari
The rising trend in bubble-tea consumption has contributed to increased use of single-use plastic cups. The Singapore Environment Council found that Singapore uses 473 million kg of single-use plastics (2018). Our survey of RVRC students (n = 135) indicated that 62% drink at least one cup of bubble-tea daily, and 7% drink more than 3 cups a day. Our project piloted a possible solution to reduce this plastic waste, with 12 volunteers from a sample of high-frequency bubble-tea drinkers. We provided them re-usable tumblers, tracked their use over 4 weeks, and collected qualitative feedback. Participants gave largely positive feedback about adopting a reusable tumbler, and data indicated a drop in their average weekly bubble-tea consumption by 28%. Both these results support our project objective, and indicate the need for an extensive study to determine if reusable tumblers can be adopted on a larger scale to limit the use of single-use plastics.