Lisbon Introduces City-Wide Reusable Cup Program

Local businesses pour drinks in reusable cups, and consumers pay a €0.60 deposit that is fully refunded when they return the cup. Consumers receive their refund by tapping their card or phone at the collection point.

The program uses Tomra’s “Rotake” full-service reuse model, which covers digital tracking, cup collection, sanitation, and redistribution. The recycler is managing the cups across their lifecycles to verify efficiency, hygiene, and environmental performance.

Consumer receive their refund by tapping their card or phone at collection points.Image courtesy of Tomra“We’re proud to partner with Lisbon on this first-of-its-kind city system in a European capital,” says Geir Sæther, head of Tomra Reuse. “The system deployed in Lisbon is designed specifically for urban areas, making reuse easy, clean, and rewarding for everyone involved.”

Supporting compliance with local regulation

About 25,000 cups are used across Lisbon’s entertainment areas each night. Some cups have been labeled and sold as “reusable” in the area, but no system has been in place to collect, clean, and recirculate the cups before this program. Its rollout follows a new Lisbon Municipal Regulation banning single-use plastic cups, with the program offering a path to regulatory compliance for local businesses.

“This initiative represents a necessary shift for the hotel/restaurant/catering sector, which now takes on an active and central role in the transition towards a more circular economy. Establishments not only gain a practical solution to comply with the new regulations, but also an opportunity to lead, together with consumers, a sustainable and positive change in habits for the city of Lisbon,” says Carlos Moura, president of AHRESP.

The Lisbon program builds on a system already implemented in Aarhus, Denmark. 18 months after implementation in Aarhus, over 1 million cups have been returned with a return rate over 85%.

“This is not just about cups. It’s about changing how cities think about resources,” says Sæther. “Lisbon is showing that with the right partners and smart policy, reuse can be mainstream, modern, and massively effective.