Where do we stand in terms of plastic?

In honor of this month's global sustainability initiative: Plastic Free July, we've researched the amount of single-use plastic that was saved since we stopped using it at our offices in 2024. The results are in, find out more below!

About Plastic Free July

Plastic Free July™ is a global movement that helps millions of people be part of the solution to plastic pollution – so we can have cleaner streets, oceans, and beautiful communities remain. As of March 6 last year, we stopped using single-use plastic cups at all our offices in the Netherlands.

Our result to far

We're working with an estimate here, as we can only gather historical data. We're taking a look at the year 2023 in which plastic cups were used at our premises every month of the year.

Supplier data from 2023 on the locations: Hengelo, Huizen & Eindhoven, shows that 1.733.000 cups (divided over 12 months) were purchased.

Now, if we assumed our demand from March 2024 up until now would be identical to our demand in 2023, we would find that we'll have saved: +/- 2.3 Million cups at the end of July in 2025.

What is the impact?

So let's say we did save 2.3 million cups so far...sounds like a lot, right? But it might be easier to understand the amount if we actually try to visualise it.

The 2.3 million cups equal:

• 🏔️- 26 Mount Everests in stacked height

2.3 M x 0.1 meter (height per cup) = 230.000 meters. The height of Mount Everest equals 8.849 meters. Therefore: 2.300.000 / 8.849 = +/- 26.

• 🏟️ - 2 football fields if laid flat

An average cup base diameter is ~8 cm. Area per cup = π × r² ≈ 3.14 × (4²) = 50.24 cm². 2.3M × 50.24 cm² = 115,552,000 cm² = 11,555 m².

Area of one football field (American): ~5,300 m².

11,555 ÷ 5,300 ≈ 2.2 football fields.

• 🐘 - 10 adult elephants in weight

2.3 million x 20 g (weight per cup) = 46.000.000 g = 46.000 kg. The average adult African elephant weighs 4.500-6.000 kg. 46.000 / 4.600 = 10 elephants.

• 🛢️- 600 barrels of oil prevented

Each cup uses around 42 ml of oil for production. 2.3 M x 0.042 L = 96.600 liters of oil, which is about 600 barrels of oil (1 barrel = 159 liters).

• 🌍 - 46 tons of plastic kept out of the environment

2.3 million cups x 20 g = 46.000.000 g = 46 metric tons.