Optus Stadium reaches one million serves in reusable cups

During September’s AFL Semi-Final, Optus Stadium reached one million drinks served in reusable cups. The milestone came just six months after the stadium introduced reusable cups for all tap beer, the first major stadium in Australia to do so across an entire venue.

Since March, our cups have been a fixture at the footy, with as many as 90,000 drinks served in reusable cups on the busiest weekends. Behind those serves are the bar staff handing over freshly poured beers and the fans returning their empty cups to collection points around the stadium.

Behind the scenes, our team has been collecting, washing and returning tens of thousands of cups week after week. It’s been our first AFL season at Optus Stadium, and a busy one.

Six months of keeping cups in circulation

When Optus Stadium and VenuesLive decided to introduce reusable cups for all tap beer, there was no Australian stadium operation of this size to use as a blueprint.

A venue that can accommodate 60,000 people needs an enormous number of cups in circulation. Those cups also need to be collected, cleaned and back in supply for the next event, often with little time between fixtures.

Together with VenuesLive and Optus Stadium, we established a system designed around the stadium’s event calendar, its bars and the number of drinks being served.

Our role begins before the gates open: clean, sanitised cups are delivered to the venue in reusable transport boxes, ready to be distributed across its bars and kiosks. During and after each event, used cups are collected in dedicated bins before being transported to our wash facility in Perth.

The facility can wash up to 10,000 cups an hour. Once washed and sanitised, the cups are packed and returned to the stadium, ready to be used again.

The cups themselves are made from polypropylene and are certified for up to 500 washes. They’re also stackable, which makes a huge difference with transporting and handling the volumes involved in a major stadium operation.

It’s a process that has to happen reliably throughout the season. A lighter week and a weekend with consecutive major events place very different demands on the system, and managing cup supply, collection, transport and washing around that changing schedule has been a big part of our first six months.

The return rate

Introducing reusable cups meant asking people to change something they’d been doing for years. Instead of leaving their empty cups behind or throwing them away, they would need to return them to collection points around the stadium.

Within the first two months, the return rate had exceeded 94%.

That was an encouraging result so early in the program, particularly with tens of thousands of people attending matches every week. It also gave us a practical answer to one of the questions other venues ask about reuse: whether customers will actually bring the cups back.

Our team can wash and dry up to 10,000 cups an hour, but the cups need to make it back to us first. The fans’ willingness to return them has made a real difference to the operation, and across the season those returns have kept cups moving through the system week after week.

One million serves, and counting

For other venues looking at reusable cups, Optus Stadium offers a working example of what’s involved. Cup supply and washing capacity are essential, but so are the collection arrangements, the turnaround between events and the willingness of fans to return their cups.

We’re proud to have worked with VenuesLive and Optus Stadium to build the system from the beginning, and to have reached one million serves in our first season.

Thanks to the teams at the stadium who have made the change work on game day, our Perth crew who keep the cups moving, and the fans who continue to return them.

The first million drinks in reusable cups. We’re looking forward to the next season of reuse at Optus Stadium, and reaching that next million.

Find out more about our reusable cup system.