TL;DR
Buying reusable cups makes sense when the same branded stock will be used across a season and you have somewhere to wash and store it. Hiring makes sense when you want cups to arrive clean and leave dirty, with washing, drying, storage and collection handled by the supplier. On this site hire starts at 1,000 cups with a lead time of three to five working days for generic stock, and purchase starts at 50 cups. Published schemes in Scotland report return rates as high as 92% and reductions in disposable use above 95%.
The first decision a reusable cup programme forces is not the deposit or the design. It is whether you want to own the cups at all.
Two ways to run the same cup
Zero Waste Scotland describes a reusable cup scheme as a borrowing arrangement: the customer borrows a cup and either returns it free of charge, pays a small deposit refunded on return, or uses an app that charges them if the cup does not come back. Its January 2025 guidance is clear about what the deposit is for: the cost of the deposit is designed to cover the cost of the cup, allowing for non-returned cups to be replaced.
Whether you own the cups or hire them changes nothing about that customer-facing mechanism. It changes everything about what happens between events.
What owning the stock involves
Buying cups puts them on your balance sheet and in your storeroom. Between events they need washing, drying, counting and dry storage. Every cup that walks out of the gate is yours to replace, which is why the deposit exists.
The upside is control. Branded stock printed once serves a whole season, and the same cups can carry a sponsor's artwork from a spring festival to an autumn beer festival. On this site the reusable event cups start at 50 units, printed in one colour or full colour, so a single venue can own its cups without ordering in festival quantities.
What hiring involves
Hiring reverses the logistics. Our cup hire service is built for festivals, stadiums and large events: cups arrive ready for service, and collection, washing and drying support is available after the event, with storage between uses and cup bins to speed up the pack-down. Hire starts at 1,000 cups, with a lead time of three to five working days for generic printed stock; custom printed cups take longer. Transport to and from the washing stations is free for orders of 10,000 cups or more, and charged per pallet below that.
The trade-off is that generic hire stock carries a generic design. For a one-off event or a venue without a wash-up, that is usually the right trade.
What published schemes report
The examples Zero Waste Scotland collected in April 2023 are worth reading as a set, because the mechanisms differ and the results still land in the same range.
Murrayfield Stadium is listed on that April 2023 page as running a deposit scheme at one pound per cup. The OVO Hydro started with a one pound deposit and moved to a free borrow service in March 2022. The Highland Cup Movement reported over 1,000 reusable cups checked out in 2023 with a 92% return rate, alongside a 27% increase in customers bringing their own cup. In Portobello and Joppa in 2021 and 2022, a business running a deposit scheme alongside a 20p charge on disposables cut disposable cup use by more than 95%.
None of those figures depends on who owned the cups. They depend on where the return points were, how the deposit was explained, and whether staff were briefed.
The four questions that decide it
How many events a year will use the same cups. One or two, hire. A season, buy.
Whether you have a wash-up and dry storage. No, hire, or buy and use the washing service. Yes, buying is realistic.
Whether the design changes between events. Sponsor artwork that changes each time favours owning stock printed per run, or hiring generic stock and printing merchandise separately.
Whether the numbers are stable. A festival that knows its bar volumes can size a purchase. A venue trying reusables for the first time can hire, measure its return rate, and buy next year with real figures.
If you are still weighing it, order a sample cup and ask the team which route suits the event: the answer usually takes one conversation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the minimum quantity for reusable cup hire?
Hire on this site starts at 1,000 cups, with a lead time of three to five working days for generic printed stock. Custom printed cups take longer.
Does cup hire include washing?
Yes. Cups arrive ready for service, and collection, washing and drying support is available after the event, along with storage between uses. Cup bins can be supplied to speed up collection at the end of the show.
What return rate can a reusable cup scheme expect?
Zero Waste Scotland's examples include the Highland Cup Movement, which reported a 92% return rate on over 1,000 cups checked out in 2023. Results depend on return point placement, how the deposit is explained and staff briefing rather than on who owns the cups.
When does buying cups make more sense than hiring?
When the same branded stock will serve a season of events and you have a wash-up and dry storage. Purchase on this site starts at 50 cups, so a single venue can own its stock without ordering festival quantities.
How we checked this article
Checked on 1 September 2026. Zero Waste Scotland's page on reusable cup schemes, published 10 January 2025, for the four scheme models and the purpose of a deposit, and its page of examples from Scotland and beyond, dated 20 April 2023, for the named schemes, their deposits and their results; every figure quoted is attributed to that page and carries its year. Hire terms, minimum quantities, lead times and what the washing service includes are taken from this site's own rental and product pages, which state them; no price is repeated in this article.
- Published by
- Branded Cups Ltd
- Sources last checked
- 2026-09-01
