With the realisation of the Unocup by a duo of New York based designers, the days appeared numbered for the plastic lided coffee cup, a source of much frustration within the drinks industry's pursuit of zero waste and improved recycling.
Functioning much like a piece of origami artwork, the Unocup retains the full usability of a traditional coffee cup, offering the choice of sipping through a small lip or a fully open top; the latter allowing the barista to showcase their handy artwork as normal.
Launched in mid-November 2019, the cup has gathered much attention from a diverse spectrum of interested parties, all sharing the passion to reduce plastic production and decrease the amount which ends up polluting the world's oceans to catastophic effect.
Staggeringly, within the Unocups home city of New York alone a total of 1.5 billion lids are discarded each year, highlighting the immense impact this seemingly simple design may have upon the future.
Ethically created, simple to fold and reliable to use; it might not be long until you find yourself sipping your morning flat white from a Unocup very soon.