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FAST COMPANY recognizes r.Cup on their list of "2020 World's Most Innovative Companies"

“It’s a huge honor to be recognized as a top innovator in the live event industry by such an esteemed media brand and editorial team,” said Michael Martin, r.Cup Founder and CEO. “I’m proud of our strong heritage in sustainability and that we’re consistently pushing for industry change by offering new solutions like r.Cup.”

Reduce. Reuse. Return. r.Cup

Watch out single-use, we’re coming for you!

Each year in North America, the live event industry contributes over 4 billion single-use cups that end up in landfills, incinerators and ultimately, the environment.

Compostable cups are plastic with PFAs so highly persistent in the environment they are called “forever chemicals”. They are expensive. They disrupt our current recycling infrastructure and most of the time end up as plastic waste.

Single use aluminum cups are now entering the market and are a bad solution because of the intensive resources and energy required to produce and recycle them – and less than 50% is recycled!

Local governments are enacting legislation banning and taxing single-use plastics.

Fans, venues, teams, festivals, concessionaires, artists and communities are demanding a solution.

r.Cup is a turn key operation solution.

A new infrastructure for the reusable economy.

How r.Cup works.

More than a reusable cup,
we’re makers of a movement.

Disrupt the single-use
plastic cup.

r.Cup reduces the need for single-use cups at live events with a more profitable, and better environmental solution for artists, tour managers, venues and concessionaires.

Generate environmental impact, revenue, and profit.

Finally a way to do something good for the environment that actually generates profit.

Reward fans, artists, teams and venues.

r.Cup allows artists and venues to show guests they care about the environment while incentivizing and inspiring them to take control of their own waste stream.

1. Create!

All cups are designed and made in the USA. Highest quality cups, lowest carbon footprint.

2. Stock.

We handle all logistics and delivery to your concessions. Use r.Cups in place of single-use with all beverages sold.

3. Reuse.

r.Cups served and reused throughout event. Let our team help you navigate state and local health code.

4. Return.

After use, r.Cups are returned to our collections bins or taken home by fans to be used over and over and over.

5. Wash.

Used r.Cups are picked up by our team and taken to our network of national washing facilities to be washed and sterilized.

6. Warehouse.

From load-in to load-out, our nationwide system of warehouses and management team take the worry out of storage space and inventory controls.

7. Report.

r.Cup provides an environmental impact report for you to monitor and share with guests.

8. Repeat!

Our r.Cup inventory is sterilized after every use and used again... and again... and again...

Choose your r.Cup

"Michael Martin is the guru of music industry greening."

- Billboard Magazine

r.Cup was born from
3 decades of expertise.

r.Cup was developed by Michael Martin and his agency, Minneapolis-based Effect Partners. We’ve been at the forefront of awareness and action in the environmental movement, climate change, single-use plastics reduction, and music industry greening since 1990.

In addition to working with the world’s leading artists on greening initiatives, Effect Partners has identified major sustainability issues and acted as a catalyst to develop business and culture based solutions to tackle them. Martin and his teams have worked with Live Nation to help develop their sustainability strategy, Toyota to launch the Prius, Apple Computers to help develop the strategy to take complete responsibility for their own CO2 emissions, President Obama’s White House and EPA, the launching of green energy in this country with Green Mountain Energy and Native Energy; they helped make Earth Day an annual event, and put climate change on the national stage by creating the country’s first national global warming campaign in 1999, The Ben & Jerry’s Dave Matthews Band One Sweet Whirled Campaign.

r.Cup delivers a simple solution that moves consumer behaviors away from disposables and towards a new culture of reuse thereby making a positive environmental impact. Single-use cups have long been the holy grail of live events greening. r.Cup is the solution.

Michael Martin
CEO & Founder
r.Cup & Effect Partners

“The cause of environmentalism is complicated. But with the help of Michael Martin and his team, U2 and Live Nation continue to find innovative ways to reduce and mitigate our touring environmental impacts. These are small and symbolic gestures, but through them we hope to educate ourselves and our audience as to how we can all do more to protect our beautiful planet”

“In America, we’re a throwaway society, and what’s happening is people are now seeing the ramifications of that. And so we’re hoping we’ll be able to wake people up and rejigger things.”

“If you see the Stones in concert this summer and go get a drink, there may be no single-use plastic cup for you. The band and its promoter are working with Michael Martin -- he’s produced a bunch of big Earth Day concerts. The Stones approached Martin and asked for help in eliminating waste. He came up with a simple solution… r.Cup.”

“A Minnesota-based company is working with bands like U2 to develop an alternative that creates zero waste, generates additional income for participating venues, and gives fans a souvenir.”

“After using r.Cup, I see almost no plastic cups out there on the floor at all, and that’s a drastic change… a shocker.”

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2021 GOAL: Bring REUSE best practices to the masse

FAST COMPANY recognizes r.Cup on their list of "2020 World's Most Innovative Companies"

Reduce. Reuse. Return. r.Cup

r.Cup is a turn key operation solution.

A new infrastructure for the reusable economy.