Belfast venues to trial single-use plastic cup ban

A pilot scheme banning single-use plastic at venues has launched in Belfast.

The scheme aims to replace single-use plastics with reusable cups. Ulster Hall, The Waterfront Hall, The SSE Arena, Oh Yeah Centre, Black Box, Voodoo and The MAC are among the venues set to introduce reusable cups within the next month.

The venues are partnering with North Down Marquees, an event supply company, who will supply the venues with reusable cups and collect used cups, which will be washed in a central washing facility, and redistributed.

Acting chief executive of ICC Belfast, Waterfront Hall and Ulster Hall, Iain Bell said: “The switch from glass to plastic remains an important health and safety concern for gigs and entertainment venues, so this is a very positive step towards a solution which addresses both safety and sustainability.”

Dermot McGinn, Group Head of Food and Beverage at The Odyssey Trust, said: “We are committed to providing customers with the best experience every time while also minimising our environmental impact wherever possible.

“We are pleased to work alongside other forward-thinking venues to tackle single-use plastic waste and support a more sustainable future for entertainment in Northern Ireland.”

Director of the Black Box, Kathryn McShane said the venue has “never liked using single-use cups for our standing events”. She added that the venue had been investigating alternatives for several years and that the “positive impact of the reusable cup scheme” for venues in the city “will be huge”.

The initiative is the first multi-venue scheme of its type in Ireland and the UK, and is part of 12-month pilot led by the Venue Sustainability Forum and supported by Visit Belfast.

Organisers of the scheme hope to remove 40 tons of plastic waste produced by Belfast’s clubs and venues each year.

Other venues in the city are expected to join the scheme in the next phase of the rollout.

In recent years, Live Nation has removed single-use plastics from its festivals, and DC-10 in Ibiza switched to reusable containers in 2019.

Revisit Simon Doherty’s opinion piece on the issue of single-use plastics in clubs.